SINHA DANSE

ŚUNYA

Sinha Danse, created by Roger Sinha in 1991 in Montreal, merges contemporary choreography and storytelling with martial arts, new technologies, digital performance, spoken word and Bharata Natyam. *

Constantinople, a trio of musicians created in Montreal in 1998, brings vocals, viola de gamba, setar and tombak together through the skillful musical talents/collaboration of Kiya Tabassian and Pierre-Yves Martel.

Together, Sinha Danse and Constantinople have created Sunya, a multi-media dance performance that speaks to ideas of migration in a haunting, explosive, and beautifully layered manner.

Visual design by Jerôme Delapierre, with lighting by Caroline Nadeau and Video Management by Elysha Poirier – under the technical direction of Julien De La Sablonnière, plays a pivotal role as bodies and sounds move exquisitely across the stage, providing impressions of movement aligned with narratives of migration from one state to another.

Kiya Tabassian’s haunting vocals, as they mingle physically – at close proximity to the dancer – while he plays the setar, provide a powerful interactive quality to the overall piece as the dancer’s body leaps toward and away from the sound the corporeal beauty and subtly of the musician’s presence and craft.

The dancers –  supported by Sinha’s diverse choreography (Thomas Casey, Tanya Crowder, Marie-Ève Lafontaine, and François Richard) present singular and ensemble precision a and they deliver solos and group moments that speak subtly of the hard won joy, physical hardship that migration can represent. The potential for movement through fear into relative safety emerges as migrating bodies flee through complex physical and cultural projections that suggest, simultaneously, waves, sands, languages, and the passage of time.

There is a very powerful section part way through where a mound of moving bodies rises up, down, across, and through the changing light – both bright and shadowy, opaque yet vivid – whereby a writhing ensemble of dancer and projection collaborates to create a visually stunning upheaval that simultaneously reveals the intimate bodily movement of single muscles, backs, limbs and sublime emotional gesticulation...

SUNYA RAN AT THE FLECK DANCE THEATRE (HARBOURFRONT) NOVEMBER 19TH-21ST

(*a form of dance originating in southern India)