Boston-based Wendy Jehlen founded Anikaya Dance Theater in 1998. Through wide-ranging productions, she has constantly endeavoured to break the boundaries between people, culture and art forms. Jehlen is deeply interested in the communicative possibilities of the body. Her choreography incorporates elements of Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Kalaripayattu, Butoh, West African dance and a range of contemporary movement forms.
To put things in perspective, she writes on the Anikaya website, “We incorporate traditional forms, internalizing them and then allowing them to re-emerge as part of a new movement vocabulary. The result is a work that is resonant of deep-rooted traditions, without being bound to any particular genre, place or practice.”
The divine king
In the spring of 2018, with support from various grants, and commissioned by the Boston Center for the Arts, Anikaya Dance Theater premiered ‘The Conference of the Birds’, an evening-length movement theatre work inspired by Mantiq-ut-Tair, a 12th century epic poem by legendary Sufi mystic poet Farid ud-Din Attar.
In the allegorical poem, 30 birds from all over the world embark on an arduous journey to find their divine king, the mythical bird Simorgh, who resides on Qaf Mountain. On reaching the destination, the birds realise they themselves are the Simorgh — they find divinity in their collective selves. The poem’s contemporary rendition, however, as helmed by Jehlen and others, embodies stories gathered from modern-day refugees and other migrants. Eight dancers, from Brazil, the U.S., Benin, Turkey, South Africa/ India, Indonesia, Egypt and Japan, were invited to a five-week residency in Boston where they worked with Jehlen to execute their collective vision of the poem.
Filmmaker Bijoyini Chatterjee and her editor husband Juan Carlos went to record the final performance of ‘The Conference of the Birds’. They also ended up making a 20-minute process film (of the same name, released in June this year) that captures various moments from the rehearsal and almost unveils the choreographic process. While non-fiction music and dance films abound, there are very few that document the creation of the choreography itself. In its making, the film also acquires a work-in-progress quality. While the dancers are trying to create choreography, the filmmakers pursue a film. Both are unsure about the end result.
Chatterjee, trained in flamenco and Bharatanatyam, was also concerned about capturing and adapting dance to a two-dimensional space. She says her previous work with dance and dancers helped her to be mindful of subjects moving in front of the camera.
Dance as idiom
The film is evocative and shows how different bodies, styles and points of view are fused to execute a unified vision. It shows the dancers, including Jehlen, huddled together in discussion, making spot improvisations, helping others navigate limitations, and also teaching each other their respective styles. You understand that collaboration ought to be an inclusive process where all participants are heard and opinions equally valued. The film and the final performance thus are polyphonic artworks echoing multiple voices, styles and dance idioms.
The opening visual is particularly striking; the viewers are confronted with different ethnicities represented by the dancers. To highlight difference and its gradual extinction in the collaborative process is perhaps the raison d’etre of the film and the project. Soon, the dancers are seen in their home contexts, practising various movements in preparation for the workshop. This to me is a visually striking moment as you encounter difference that gradually disappears to create a shared vision. And it is easier said than done.
The essential story that the film is trying to narrate is that of interdependence, that all our stories come together to form the human story, that each of our stories matter. This is the reality of the current political and media landscape, and one that is often, if not almost always, hidden.
A foodie and cinephile, the writer teaches literary and cultural studies at Pune’s FLAME University.