aSH

In Shantala Shivalingappa’s name we find Shiva, the lord of dance.  According to the texts, Shiva has over one thousand names. He is the god  of creation and destruction. Lord of cremation grounds, his body is  covered with ash. Shantala Shivalingappa’s dance revolves around the  figure of this god, whose vibration gives rise to the rhythm of the  world.

I asked Shantala if she wanted to experience ash. Ash is not merely  the solid residue of perfect combustion : it is a process. Ash is a  fertiliser. It is part of a cycle of death and birth. Ash therefore  possesses the potentiality of life. Is this why it is sacred in India,  why cremation grounds have a particular energy, why life and death are  but one and the same in the cycle of reincarnations? What does Shiva do?  He destroys and he dances.

I met Shantala Shivalingappa in 2008, in the corridors of the  theatre, in Dusseldorf with Pina Bausch. It was the last “Drei wochen  mit Pina” festival. Shantala danced with Pina Bausch in Nefés, she also  presented a solo, as well as a duet with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. It was  there that Shantala saw Plus ou moins l’infini (More Or Less, Infinity).  It was a time of strong convergence that seems almost unreal to me,  considering that it brought together a number of elements which were  going to be significant to my path and to that of Shantala’s. Something  was going to die here and something else was going to be reborn.

Shantala’s dance is moulded by this journey between Kuchipudi and  Pina Bausch, between India and Europe, between Shiva and Dionysus, who  are said to be incarnations of the same deity, Shiva having lived on in  Hindu mythology while Dionysus, swept aside by monotheistic religions,  was gradually forgotten in Europe, a wandering god, god of theatre.  Shantala constantly travels back and forth between Madras where she was  born, and Paris where she lives. Her dance mirrors this perpetual  swinging, somewhere between Hindu mysticism and quantum physics.

I pictured Shantala Shivalingappa dancing on ash for aSH, the title  of which is made up of the initials and last letters of her name. aSH is  the final opus in the trilogy of portraits of women, ten years after it  began in 2008 with Questcequetudeviens? (What’s Become of You ?),  followed by Plexus in 2012. In this trilogy, my starting point is not  space, which is my usual subject matter in theater, but a woman, a  person who has her own story. This trilogy is about a living being  unfolding through dance. With aSH, Shantala Shivalingappa dances beyond  herself. In a set designed from ash and vibrations, she incarnates Shiva  who propels the world into manifesting and allows space to dance.

Aurélien Bory • Sept. 2017

Source: Compagnie 111’s website

More information: www.cie111.com