‘Sari Sir’: a dance of memory, resistance and renewal

ARTISTIC MENTORSHIP

- SARANYA DEVAN

KARABO Seitshiro and Dino Vavatzanidis, students from the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies, feature in Sari Sir.

(Supplied)

THIS week, Cape Town audiences witnessed an artistic work with a dual purpose - an act of remembrance and a quiet revolution.

Sari Sir, a Bharatha Nat-yam-based dance drama, took its first breaths at The Little Theatre at the University of Cape Town’s Hiddingh Campus, and with it came a stirring embodiment of history, womanhood and endurance.

For the first time, non-In-dian performers took to the stage to narrate, through Bharatha Natyam, the lives of women brought from India to slave on then Natal’s sugar plantations for five decades after 1860.

Presented by the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies (CTDPS) in collaboration with Sharana Performing Arts, and written, choreographed and directed byme, the production weaves months of rigorous training and artistic mentorship.

The cast comprised 10 CTDPS students, who had never before performed Bharatha Natyam, embraced both the discipline and the emotive vocabulary of this classical South Indian form.