The Making of Sundara: Life and Times of Venkatasundara Sani | A presentation by Gayathri Iyer | Thursday, April 29, 2021

We are back!

Project Showcase @ IFA

The Making of Sundara: Life and Times of Venkatasundara Sani
A presentation by Gayathri Iyer

Thursday, April 29, 2021 | 06:00 PM – 07:00 PM | Zoom and Facebook live

Spend the International Dance Day with us to explore a piece of the little-known history of dance from Bangalore!

How can the history of dance, not also be the history of the dancer? We are delighted to invite you to a presentation by Gayathri Iyer on the making of Sundara - a Bharatanatyam performance based on the life and times of Venkatasundara Sani, a dancer from the courtesan community who was associated with the Ulsoor Someshwara temple in Bangalore in the early 20th century. Gayathri will share the process that went into making the performance including the research to re-create the aesthetic mis-en-scene. She will also narrate the story of her own encounter with the lost voice of Venkatasundara Sani and the challenges of tuning her body in line with the aesthetics of a woman dancer in that period.

Gayathri is an art and dance historian and Bharatanatyam dancer interested in the intersection between movement and the temple space. She is currently completing a PhD in dance sculpture at JNU, where she studies sculptures and voices in the margins of Indian art.

This session is organised as part of the Project Showcase @ IFA, a series of online presentations to showcase, discuss, and engage audiences with the diverse projects we support across programmes.

Click here and register to join us at the discussion on zoom.

The discussion will also be streamed live on our facebook page - no prior registration required to join the live streaming.

Gayathri Iyer received support from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Project 560 programme for an Arts Project (Research/Practice) in Bangalore in 2018-2019 and partnered by Citi India.