Catrine Val, a bangalore resident artiste at Natya and STEM Dance Kampni, defines herself as a “visual artiste. I work with various forms of media – film, still photography, paintings and dance movement.” The German artiste was in the city to work “intensively with dancer Madhu Nataraj and team. The outcome is a wonderful choreography - not just of body but also of images — sensual and philosophical in experience.”
The result of her stay in the city is her work ‘Transcendence - The Lotus Chronicles’, which is a blend of video installation and live performances. “I am also a photoshop monster. You will find no cows or poverty in my films as that is not the India I want to portray to the Western eye,” laughs Catrine.
During her collaboration, she placed the dancers in “challenging ambiences, forcing them into situations that made them think and move differently. I placed the dancers bang in the middle of a traffic signal, a pool of water or even nature, like on a rock or in the midst of a strong wind. Some times I asked them to close their eyes because that way they become more aware of the space around them from the inside. The media is always portraying women as weak – in accidents, or some tragic incident. It happens, I know, but I think we should show women in a different way too. I want to show people that each woman has the power and the voice to speak for herself.”
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Catrine adds: “Bollywood, especially, puts the woman in a bubble, which has to be broken. This is the focus of my work here”. She is fascinated that in India, the woman is worshipped as a goddess and that mythology is used in dance, “giving the dancer so many characters to portray. So a woman can become a creator, lover or even the destroyer. I am taking back with me the dignity of India with all its bright hues.”
The reason for her to place dancers in chaotic spaces was to see “if people stopped to notice the woman in spite of the chaos. As the work progresses, you will realise that life is not devoid of sound. There is always the sound of traffic or the birds or the wind. There will never be a moment of stillness in life. Movement and expression can not be contained.”