Five Questions with Nova Bhattacharya
How did you develop the material involved in your upcoming Date With Dance performances?
Date with Dance is an hour long, informal performance and conversation about dance. During the hour I perform three dances that illustrate my journey from a classical art form to a contemporary one and open up discussions about abstraction and many other aspects of the art form.
What would you say the biggest challenges are in producing and performing a solo dance production?
Because Date with Dance is informal and low tech, its actually quite easy for me, the dancing at least! It is a challenge to say the right things, to figure out how knowledgable the audience is about dance, to speak to them in a way that makes sense and isn’t too dance geeky!
As an accomplished solo performer, how do your performances vary from show to show, and do the dynamics of the room and the audience help to evolve each production in a tour?
For Date with Dance the audience is KEY. If they engage with my dancing and the conversation it goes by in a flash. If not, it can be a bumpy ride. The conversations we have about the work and the images they see can certainly provide rich nourishment for each following performance.
When the word “classical” is used to describe dance or music it often conjures a sense of rigidness and tradition, yet your work has been regarded as progressive in many ways. How do you walk the line between time honoured forms and modern interpretation?
I usually describe it as blurring the line between the two, or even erasing it. My initial training and career were in a classical style of dance. Since then I have been immersed in studying techniques that enable me as a performer to let go of classical notions of perfection and work towards what feels to me a more honest form of physical expression.
If you had to pick one message or emotion you would most like to communicate to Date With Dance audiences, what would that be?
Set your imagination free.
The Fredericton Playhouse presents Date with Dance as part of their Spotlight Series, Thursday October 9, 2014 at 7:30pm. Tickets available at the box office.
To learn more about Nova and her work, visit her online at NovaDance.ca
