India

One of BDC Director, Jonathan Hollander's favorite memories is of a performance in Lucknow, India.  

With this particular costume-heavy production with lots of printed silk garments, the company had requested an iron and ironing board at every one of the 17 theaters they were touring.  

Normally, a sputtering, rusted iron was provided, scaring the daylights out of BDC with the thought of scorches and rust stains.  

Well, in Lucknow, an iron-wallah showed up, must have been about 80 years old, with a huge, heavy implement and a small board.  

The implement turned out to be an iron and into it, he placed hot coals.  Well -- to the companies Western-bred minds, the combination of fine silks and burning coals did not go together at all.  But BDC was proved completely wrong.  

 This little man with his big iron produced the smoothest, most beautifully pleated costumes ever!
 

Battery Dance Company's 1995 trip to India was one of its earliest and most extensive trips. It was the third annual tour in what would evolve into over a decade of tours in India. Below are some of the press quotes from the 1995 trip. It is important that a reliable archive of media clippings be created and archived after each trip. These can be essential when applying for funding to support future tours.

1995 India Quotes

India Press, 1995

Femina Magazine - Hima Devi

"Once in a while, and only once, comes choreography with the lyrical beauty of Moonbeam: a breathless, magical moment in the history of dance."

SRUTI - Nala Najan

“Hollander possesses a sensitive awareness of the substrata of the stage and a deft control of those dimensional kinships between earth and air-space into which the body travels with endless surprise.”

India Currents (U.S.) - Jyothi Kiran

Battery Dance Company artistic director Jonathan Hollander boldly goes where most men generally don't dare: into the world of dance... Hollander soars beyond the limits of tradition in his production "PURUSH: Expressions of Man.".

The Economic Times (Calcutta) - Sunil Kothari

"the romantic adagio drifts on at a hypnotic pace after bringing a man and woman together; a moment of transforma¬tion from lonely yearnings to fulfillment."

Economic Times (Madras) - R. Gowri

"(Hollander's) Testimony to Nataraja was a separate American entity, with no material or spiritual connection to the Indian segment. What it did, however, was to reveal quality of a kind rarely achieved in Indian performances; disciplined purposes, faultless rendition.... The music composed and performed by Badal Roy on the tabla and Ken Wessel on the guitar set up intense moods... the dancers Kevin Predmore and John Freeman achieved so many (rhythms) in their movements. Their leashed power forced viewers to sit up."

Indian Express Sunday Magazine (Madras) - Vasanthi Sankanarayanan

"The feel of water, the occasional eddies and whirlpools, the rhythmic rowing of boats, the water spirit flitting across, the mys¬terious night blue aura of the underwater world. Interspersed with staccato tabla beats punctuating and guiding the movements." "Lovers, lonely in a fierce world, seeking out each other, entering the quiet, tranquil world of a moonbeam, cocooned by its sil¬ver glow, protected from a world of violence beyond, reflected the pathos, uncertainty and the occasional glimmer of hope."

The Hindu (Madras) - Nandini Ramani

"Both the dancers exhibited perfection, precision and total involvement in their work. Special patterns and rhythmical structures and a variety of movements depicting grace and elegance, marked this presentation, sometimes even including some of the Karanas or stances of Nataraja. ... A joyful blend of music and movement."

Person-to-Person Must bring Meaning to Both Parties

Baroda (or Vadodara, as it is now called) was one of the cities where BDC director, Jonathan Hollander was to be based for his assignment as a Fulbright Lecturer. The M.S. University there is one of India’s finest, and Hollander had been aware of the art department since 1968 when he was an American Field Service high school exchange student in India.

C.V. Chandrasekhar occupied the position of Dean of the Dance Program within the Music College at M.S. University. Waiting to get his approval for thr lecturing position was a nail-biting time for Hollander – but it finally came and that unlocked the key to the entire program.

Chandrasekhar became a very close friend. Riding around the crowded lanes of Baroda on the back of his motor bike was a memory Jonathan Hollander will never forget. Like so many Indian dancers Jonathan met, he was a polymath – his first degree was in Botany; he was a consummate musician; his choreography was stunningly original; and even as he reached the age of a grandfather, he has continued to dance and perform.

When thinking about the many chapters of this relationship, it seems important to point out that the best international cultural projects are bilateral; and that, at the heart of it, the person-to-person element must offer something meaningful to both parties.

In this case, Chandrasekhar showed Hollander his choreography – performed by magnificently skilled dancers who all had “day jobs” followed by long-distance commutes in order to appear for nightly rehearsals at their Guru’s studio/home. Stunned by his powerful choreographic voice, Hollander determined that American audiences should have the opportunity to experience it. Months later after having returned to the U.S., he also met with Jenneth Webster, the artistic director of Lincoln Center’s Out-of-Doors Festival, and she, like Hollander, recognized Chandrasekhar’s brilliance and agreed to present his company.

This led to a very intensive undertaking – the booking of a national U.S. tour for Chandrasekhar and his troupe of dancers and musicians. It was an exhausting endeavor but BDC learned many important lessons (ie. applying for work visas for dance companies - P-3 is the category for culturally unique performers) and made a name for Battery Dance Company among academics and Indo-philes across the U.S.