Bharatnatyam dancer Rukmini Chatterjee says that two totally disparate genres can have a lot in common

Bharatnatyam dancer Rukmini Chatterjee, who has performed globally and has lived in Paris for 25 years, feels that acquaintance with diverse cultures “gives us a big edge over others.” She is curating Connections, a festival which hosts Chinese dancers with French jazz musicians.

Asked about the converging cultures of the world, the choreographer who trained under Mrinalini Sarabhai, said, “It should be an essential part of people’s lives today since we live in a knowledge economy and a global village. My artistic path for the past 28 years has been that of bringing cultures together on the same stage, crossing borders of all sorts and getting artists and art forms from across the globe to dialogue,”  Chatterjee said.

“Knowing and understanding other cultures gives us a big edge over others, by widening our horizons and making us much more capable of dealing with global situations, psychologies, economies and many other domains,” she added.

Her leitmotif for the Connections festival, since its inception in 2014, has been selecting performances that touch the hearts and minds of people. Lined up this year is the Beijing Dance Academy, whose aesthetics come from their martial arts, acrobatics, ancient poetry, painting and drama, and who are performing for the first time in India.

As per the organisers, some of the dances have been created by the choreographer of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. “Our endeavour has been to bridge the gap between the old and the new by building bridges between our ancient culture and our modern audience,” they said.

Chatterjee, with her vast repertoire of international performances, also shared that the performances that excite her the most connect deeply with audiences across cultures and countries. “They could be profoundly anchored in their own cultures, but are also universal in nature. Two totally disparate genres can still have a lot in common,” she explained.

This merging of cultures is visible in her own oeuvre of performances and personal life, as she mentions Paris as a city that attracts world cultures and the Upanishads, which profoundly uphold the values of the universal man, as deep influences on her work.

The three-day festival is being held at the SRCPA and will conclude on April 14. —IANS