Attempting change through dance drama

Chennai-based activist Kirthi Jayakumar and dancer Aparnaa Nagesh have come together to present a compelling dance theatre performance that seeks to create awareness about various societal problems. Titled Duende it comprises three powerful acts — White Noise, Depaysment and Her Story. Ahead of the performance in the city on March 31, the talented duo opens up about the concept behind it. 

“Duende is a Spanish word which refers to the spirit of inspiration. White Noise deals with mental illness largely caused by digital noise. Depaysement deals with the sense of displacement at being a refugee from a war-torn country and Her Story talks about a girl’s transition and focuses on a few select women whose contributions have been largely ignored in history,” says Aparnaa Nagesh, who also doubles up as choreographer and director of the show. 

A dance professional with over 17 years of training and performance experience, Aparnaa says that Duende was conceptualised out of a burning need to get her personal thoughts on the three topics off her chest. “I feel strongly about all three themes and was looking for a creative outlet to vent. There are many dialogues in place already — so conversation or dialogue was not really the intent. My intent is to shake things up for the audience who are watching the performance. It is to jolt people out of their complacent bubbles and to open their eyes to the numerous things that are going wrong around them. As a society, we are being dumbed down by psychological manipulation through marketing and advertising and nobody knows what is true anymore,” explains Aparnaa, who is also the founder and artistic director of Madras Dance Arts. 

Kirthi Jayakumar, who has written the act Her Story, says, “The script is very close to my heart and is a result of a lot of internalisation of the narratives of women through history and in contemporary settings. Writing it was not as intense as it was to re-evaluate them once I was done writing — because it is an extremely intense topic. Her Story addresses the erasure of women in history. The aim of the performance is not awareness, but to encourage people to act. It’s not to influence change but to create change. The time for awareness is over — we have enough information around us. It’s time to act and people need to arrive at that space in their lives.” 

The run-time of each act is 60-minutes followed by a discussion with the audience.