Determined to get the most out of their summer and striving to push themselves creatively, Tanvi Sood ’13, a potential Theatre and Dance major, and several friends from home initiated one of the first dance-only concerts of its kind in Calcutta, India.
Traditional dance and theatrical performances being the norm, their young adult group’s eclectic, creative and innovative style pushed the artistic boundaries and conventions of the customary culture.
Ranging in age from 12 to 24, the 45 cast and crewmembers put together an hour-long show that consisted of 10 dance pieces and a finale.
Auditions were held in June, and there were two final showings of “The Concert” the first week of August. This time frame left them with a little less than two months to assemble and produce a full production, a technical artistic feat that none of the directors had ever done before.
Yet their individual performance and production experience allowed them cohesion as a group and resulted in a successful debut show.
Sood ’13 worked primarily as the production and design director, creating the sets and operating the lighting of the show. Her two other friends and co-directors assumed the tasks of dance performance director and costume designer.† A fourth person was also involved in lighting design and technical backstage work.
Without much directional structure the dancers and choreographers were creatively free to pursue any focus they wanted. “The dances weren’t limited to any theme,” said Sood, “We were really just interested that each dance had a story.”
Dances ranged in theme from the seven deadly sins to Superman. The finale entitled “Whose Broadway is it Anyway?” was an important piece that represented the dance and theater culture of today, and was an appropriate summation of all of their work and the underlying intention and novelty of the show.
In regards to the young cast and crewmembers, Sood acknowledged that while working with young performers had its challenges, bringing in adults to help out would have introduced the element of working with trained professionals, and that was not what the group wanted.
“This was not for the professionals, the professionals have their stage; it’s the younger performers who don’t get a stage,” explained Sood.
And with close to 400 people at both showings of “The Concert,” the young performers gained more exposure than the group had originally anticipated. Initially concerned with how the public was going to react to the derivation from tradition, Sood was excited to see the turn out and pleased with the positive feedback generated by the audience.
Overall, the opportunity provided Sood with a level of practical exposure within her field of interest.
“This show is something that I can build from; I have this experience now,” noted Sood.† She further recognized the value of the technical knowledge she gained† as production manager. The backstage accommodations were limited in the production because funding for the show was minimal. Having worked backstage some at the College last year, Sood was accustomed to the convenient computer cues of lighting and sound.
However, during her work this summer, she did all of the backstage work manually, without a computer and with no communication system between the backstage crew. While difficult, Sood acknowledged that, “While I love how easy it all is here [at the College], I got so much more experience this summer just handling the equipment manually.” Altogether “The Concert” was “an expression of the young generation of Calcutta,” noted Sood, which was their intention from the beginning.† With plans to perpetuate this experience next summer, Sood hopes to move farther from theatrical dance to a more conventional theater performance.
However, the dance oriented show allowed her to see the parallels between the disciplines. “I think the reason that I love theatre is because I love the idea of thinking of a subject, and then working with a group to create one cohesive piece; this really worked well in this show because it was 11 dance stories all coming together on stage.”