Terence Lewis: Want to explore the flavours of India through Contemporary dance

In between judging the Indian edition of a popular international dance reality show choreographer Terence Lewis is busy chalking out the details of the second edition of The Jugnee IndoContemporary Dance Festival that begins today The second edition of the festival is going to be even more exhaustive and cohesive with workshops for professional dancers by international artistes such as David Zambrano Joe Alegado and others The festival has partnered with Viennese Contemporary dance festival Impulstanz as wellTerence LewisLast year we had beginners dropping by for the advance workshops too So this season we are looking at CVs as well as a short introductory video from folks interested in the workshops shares Lewis in between rehearsal at his Khar studio adding Through this festival we want to explore the flavours of India through Contemporary dance techniques That is how we can take it to the world Internationally these workshops cost lakhs but here you get to learn for Rs 3000 or Rs 4000 and without having to travel around the worldWorkshops for beginners include Kallari Contemporary by Nakula Somana Prana Paint and Flow by Ashley Lobo Chauu Contemporary by Santosh Nair and Contamination mdash a combination of yoga and Contemporary dance by LewisContamination is based on the principle of energy flow and how to uses your breath The rise and falls of the breath patterns are similar in yoga and dance When you do yoga you do a pose and hold it in this workshop we will merge it seamlessly explains Lewis There will also be a movie screening Cafeacute Muller by Pina Bausch and a panel discussion in association with India Foundation for the Arts Unraveling the Contemporary with Ashavari Majumdar Jyoti Dogra and Anuradha Venkataraman about their careersLabour of loveOne of the performances of the festival that Lewis is proud of will be by Rahul Goswami who won the Emerging Artist Award at the previous edition of the festival Bangalorebased dance company Attakkalari will present Meidhwani and Lewis will direct The Kamshet Project which he adds was a result of a lab experiment The dancers were placed under house arrest in Kamshet for seven days where they didnt dance but expressed their inner feelings through art and music This closed environment brought out the inner child pain and fear which translated to a fresh raw personal energy As an artiste for a new piece we are worried of not being honest on stage We didnt want to fake and reproduce something done before Lewis explainsThe dancing starsLewis is a veteran when it comes to judging reality dance shows just like many others of his ilk Dance and music always held a respectful place in India our kings would call artistes the ratna of their court When the British arrived here with their Victorian thoughts they shamed our arts into being entertainment Likewise on TV too earlier there was only Boogie Woogie and people didnt look at dance as an art form but entertainment Today with so many shows the audience gets to see the focus pain and hard work that goes behind dancing It is like bhakti devotion Hence it has found respect feels LewisNeed of the hourLewis feels that Indian dancing will benefit from freedom from traditional set up With all due respect to our mahagurus I wish that they would teach the students a voice of their own too and not just what has been taught to them We need to liberate from the structure parampara and provoke the audience with our personal interpretation of dance to stand out Look at Akram Khan and Shobhana mdash what great work Today the borders of countries are becoming insignificant when it comes to dance There is a Bollywood round in every international dance show We cannot be bigots when it comes to dance Lewis signs offDates Today till May 1log on to wwwjugneecomfor tickets wwwbookmyshowcom