French dancer and choreographer Ali Salami’s open space dance creation is open to the public at Malabar Hill’s Priyadarshani Park till Thursday. Mr. Salami calls himself a ‘choreographic surveyor of the public space’ and thus deploys dance in spaces that are unlikely and unexplored.
“I feel dance is for the masses and that is where I want to take the art form. I don’t believe in the limits of either the body or of space in a city as lively as Mumbai,” says Mr. Salami, adding that through this open-door practice-rehearsal-creation, the effort is to blend the radiance with an unusual dance form to satiate the heart.
“The main aim of this event is to explore urban space using dance. The intention is to keep the minds and bodies of not just the performers, but also of lovely Mumbaikars, who are drawn towards this art form, open. It’s an open invitation to the audience so that they can savour what is being presented to them in a platter, ultimately understanding and inculcating this creation,” says Mr. Salami who believes that Mumbai is a radiant city, booming with art.
As a choreographer, Mr. Salami has always felt the need to reach out to the masses and tell them that dance should run through their blood like passion. “As they say, dance like nobody is watching. My dance style may be different but it is what it is. It reverberates through my system, and it fluidly merges with the spaces. Those who possess this flaming spirit need to understand this and just be fanatical about it,” he says.
Mr. Salami was an engineering and architecture student but was drawn towards this style of dance at an early age. “My technique is an amalgam of everything I have learnt, be it dance, engineering or architecture, and that is what I want to present to the world. I want to communicate that dance is not about getting restricted in spaces, it is about creating spaces; dance is about a free flow of the body, heart and mind,” he says.
He wants people to discover a completely new thought process related to the spaces they live in, and the spaces in which life resonates, through the dance. “I don’t believe that dancers need wings to fly. It’s your heart that flies and you just have to move with the rhythm. If you are passionate about dance, your technique will get you grooving,” says Mr. Salami.
