Preview of Sutra’s Amorous Delight (March 15-19).
The touchy subject of lovers’ intimate moments replete with the full gamut of physical interaction and emotions can only be made public when clinically dissected using the medium of art.
So taboo is this subject in Eastern culture that in the Hindu tradition Kamadeva, the God of Love was made invisible to the eyes of all others except that of his wife Rathi.
Using its artistic license, Sutra Foundation unveils the second season of “Amorous Delight”, a showcase of subtle eroticism for Malaysian audiences at the KL Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC) from March 15 to 19 as part of its fundraising efforts for 2017.
The dancers of Sutra led by its artistic director, Datuk Ramli Ibrahim will bring to life through Odissi dance movements the ancient palm leaf illustrations based on Sanskrit love poetry from the 9th Century manuscript Amarushataka.
The history behind the manuscript indicates that the poet Amaru was none other than the great saint Sankaracarya, a celibrate from birth who `borrowed’ the body of King Amaru to explore the intricacies of physical love in the company of the king’s 100 wives, to face a debate on love by a scholar’s wife.
One of the Amarushataka poems (translated) reads thus:
When her sprout-like lip is bitten, she shakes her fingers in fright,
and with the dance of her creeper-like eye-brow
she cries in anger, ‘Leave me alone, thou brute!’
while with a hissing sound she contracts her eyes;
those who, with thrills of pleasure snatch kisses from such a proud maiden,
alone obtain nectar; the ocean was churned by the stupid
gods for nothing!
The poem is a semblance of what to expect in this contemporary Odissi production with dance composition and artistic direction by Meera Das from Orissa and Datuk Ramli Ibrahim.
The audience will be thrilled with the presentation of the delights and deprivations, the sensuous charms and mad intoxications, the dark anguish of union-separation and other nuances of passion displayed by the love afflicted heroine (nayika) and hero (nayaka).
Enquiries T 03-4021 1092 E sutrafoundation25@gmail.com www.facebook.com/sutrafoundation www.sutrafoundation.org.my KLPac Box Office Enquiries T +603-4047 9000 (klpac) T +603-7880 7999 (ticketpro) www.ticketpro.com.m
Preview by R. Sittamparam
Photograph by A. Prathap
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