CHOREOGRAPHY, DIRECTION & PERFORMANCE
Nirmala’s choreographic works blend dance, theatre somatic practices, voice, text, visual art and music within a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary framework.
OUTCASTE ETERNAL (1999) - Script, Co-Direction, Choreography and Performance
A meeting of dance with theatre, contemporary literature, gender and other socio-political issues and the introduction of the multicultural element. Based on the true story of the sexual revenge that a young woman wreaked on the patriarchal Namboodri Brahmin community in Kerala (South India) in the early 1900s. Premiered in Singapore in 1999 and subsequently performed in Mumbai (2000), Chennai (2008, in association with The Madras Players) and as a solo act by Nirmala Seshadri in Singapore (Singapore Writers’ Festival) in 2009.
CROSSROADS – JOURNEYS & TRANSFORMATIONS THROUGH LIFE & DANCE (2003) - Conceptualisation, co-choreography and performance
An experiment in which the traditional repertoire was viewed through a different contextual lens; where the parts of the repertoire connected into a larger conceptual framework, allowing for other forms such as film and visual art to enter. Also an exploration of the gender equation. Premiered in Chennai in 2003 and subsequently performed in various cities in South India and in Singapore.
THEN & NOW-PERSONAL & ARTISTIC REFLECTIONS (2003) - Co-conceptualisation, choreography and performance
A dance theatre experiment in two parts to understand how the texture of the dance form changes when the poetry and music of the dance form is altered. The first part deals with the memory of a Bharatanatyam margam performance, while the second segment is contemplative, and is brought out through the English translation of the Mandarin poem, Aspiration, by Singaporean poet Dan Ying. Premiered in Singapore in 2003 and subsequently presented in Chennai and Delhi. Created in close collaboration with Dr. Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan (Chennai) and Dr. Charlene Rajendran (Singapore).
ME, YOU, YOU/ME, WE (2003) - Conceptualisation, choreography and performance
In collaboration with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, she worked at finding points of connection between her dance and their music. Through a process of layering, she gradually discovered meeting points with the music through flute, rhythm, poetry and painting. This experiment culminated in her live solo performance with the 70 member Singapore Chinese Orchestra. The work also saw the meeting of her dance with the poetry and painting of Singapore’s celebrated multidisciplinary artist, Tan Swie Hian.
NAGAMANDALA (2004) - Choreography and direction
Assisted Chennai-based theatre director Bagirathi Narayanan in choreographing and directing movement sequences for the Madras Players’ staging of this work by playwright Girish Karnad.
RADHA NOW (2006) - Co-conceptualisation, choreography, direction and performance
Taking an old myth that is in the individual and collective psyche - revisiting and redefining it. To view it from the perspective of the modern woman and expressing this through dance. It is in this work that she found her approach reaching a fruition. The concept has shifted all other elements- music, literature, structure and finally even the form, to suit the mind of the contemporary woman. Premiered in Chennai and subsequently performed in Singapore.
OUTCASTE ETERNAL – A SOLO ACT (2009) - Co-conceptualisation, choreography and performance
A solo one woman-act - A meeting of dance with video images, theatre, contemporary literature, gender and other socio-political issues. Performed at the Singapore Writers’ Festival (2009).
THIS & THAT (2009) - Conceptualisation, direction, choreography
In this experiment the classical dance form Bharatanatyam meets with free form movement, poetry, music, theatre and video images. An exploration of meeting points and differing points, the work traverses various moods - aloneness, yearning, dejection and pathos shifts to hope and nostalgia, suffused with the excitement of change and newness. The work explores the thin line between time frames, between memory, reality and dream, between the classical dance form and free improvised movement. The work was choreographed by Nirmala for students of the Nanyang Academy of Dance, Singapore. Performed in Singapore and New York.
I WATCHED THE FLOWERS (2012) - Conceptualisation, co-choreography, performance
An experimental dance theatre duet. A meditation on womanhood, maturity and love. An exploration of that thin line between time frames, between memory, reality and dream. Between languages and cultures that meet in our lives, between the classical dance form and performance improvisation. This collaboration between two dancers of different backgrounds and life journeys examines the concept of Pushpanjali, an offering of flowers that traditionally opens a Bharatanatyam performance. Performed in Singapore.
I CARRY YOUR HEART (2015) - Conceptualisation, co-choreography, performance
An interdisciplinary and cross-cultural performance work which sees the coming together of dance, sculpture, poetry and music. In creating this site-specific piece, experimental dancers Nirmala Seshadri and Neewin Hershall, work through the classical dance form Bharatanatyam and the dance theatre form Butoh as they respond to the stone sculptures at the Sculpture Garden created by Singapore’s celebrated multidisciplinary artist Tan Swie Hian. Tan’s exquisite Sculpture Garden, situated within the National University Heart Centre in Singapore, is based on the poem “I carry your heart” written by the profilic and experimental American poet E.E. Cummings. The dance piece “I carry your heart” is a journey through dance, life and love, one that carries the notions of release and rejuvenation as its leitmotifs.
THE VANISHING POINT ? (2015) - Conceptualisation, choreography, direction
A site-inspired piece conceived and conceptualised by Nirmala, in response to the National University Heart Centre’s Sculpture Garden created by multidisciplinary artist Tan Swie Hian. “The Vanishing Point?” is centred on the poem “I Carry Your Heart With Me” by E.E. Cummings and the words of dance scholar and critic Marcia Siegel – “Dance exists at a perpetual vanishing point... [it is] an event that disappears in the very act of materialising". Drawing from diverse dance and movement forms including bharatanatyam, butoh, yoga, ballet, hip hop, chinese dance and contemporary dance, this improvisational, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural performance work traverses the spheres of dance, life and love, carrying the notions of separation and transformation as its leitmotifs.
PANCHA: MURMURS IN THE WIND (2016) - Scene development, direction and characterisation mentorship of Gandhari and Vayu
A partial adaptation from the story of the character, Gandhari in the Mahabaratha epic. Here, she invokes the god of wind (Vaayu) to find out the fate of her one hundred sons embroiled in the Kurukshetra war. A production by Maya Dance Theatre (Singapore), dancer Sharin Johry plays the role of the mother whose hundred sons perish in the war.
SUPERMOON (2016) - Collaborative conceptualisation, creation & performance
A multi-layered inquisition with the Lalu Lalang Laboratory (L3) into the poetry, science and symbolism of the Moon, interweaving the L3 collaborators' personal histories and journeys, that are entwined with our artistic practices. The order of our prescription to this presentation will be our points of views in the treatment of music, dance, cultural memory, mythology and performance aesthetics. L3 attempts to present a study of these areas drawing reference and inspiration from the architectural concept of borrowed scenery with superimpositions of ancient poetry by Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty and poet Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda in Sanskrit, cello music from western composer Paul Hindemith as well as popular Chinese melodies. L3’s practice-led research into SuperMoon also connects to the concept of Nayika (Sanskrit for ‘heroine in love’) and Sharad Poornima - the annual Hindu festival that marks the full moon in the lunar month of Ashvin. Perfomed for the Padang Tari Festival, October 2016.
CHARTING THE MULTIVERSE OF OUR DREAMS (2017) - Collaborative conceptualisation, creation & performance
Exploration of ideas with the Lalu Lalang Laboratory (L3) - of genesis, cosmological cycles and alternative futures, interweaving personal journeys, entwined with artistic practices. Impromptu play and extemporaneous divertissement played out in a dialogue of poetry and science, through vignettes of sound, dance and projection. Performed at the Arts Science Museum, July 2017.
THE PROBLEMATIC DANSEUSE (2019-20) – Conceptualisation, Creation, Collaboration, Presentation
A practice-research project exploring the “re-entering” of a mature and ageing female body into the space of Bharatanatyam practice, a body which is beleaguered with the hegemonic and patriarchal issues that surround the dance form. It investigates the body’s interaction with its own writing, its personal and performative past, its more recent engagement with notions of ‘dance’ and ‘choreography’, and with the socio-cultural milieu in which it currently exists. Carrying the bodily memories of Marginalisation and Censorship, the mature female body examines desire, desirability and vulnerability, alongside questions of caste privilege, appropriation and solidarity, as it explores its own reinvention in and through dance.
In this retrospective in lecture-performance mode, the performing body is invited to re-emerge and present itself in potentially new, diverse and empathetic ways. The Problematic Danseuse is based on the published academic paper The Problematic Danseuse: Reclaiming Space to Dance the Lived Feminine (Nirmala Seshadri, 2017). Incubated and Presented at Dance Nucleus Singapore, 2019
CHINTA CINTA (2020-21) - Conceptualisation, Creation, Collaboration, Presentation
An intercultural dialogue and practice-in-research endeavour with dancer-researcher Soultari Amin Farid. From the perspectives of Bharatanatyam and Malay dance respectively, an engagement with traditional literary, musical and dance expressions. Critical experimentation and discussion on the Gita Govinda and Serampang Dua Belas as cultural “texts”. Presented digitally via Bhumi Collective, 2021
DANCE AFFECTIONATE (2021-21) – Conceptualisation, Direction
The project imagines the performance space as a constantly evolving living archive situated within a virtual site. Three dance and movement artists - Nrithya Pillai, Hasyimah Harith and Jereh Leung are invited to workshop new directions that consider communication reshaping as a result of the pandemic. Multimedia artist Mervin Wong and filmmaker Charmaine Poh are also invited to provide their inputs to the exploration. Presented online at www.danceaffectionate.com, 2021