First Sighting

Date: 14th-18th February (Wed – Sun) 2024 (5 nights of performance)
Venue: Theatre, DPAC
Duration: 1.5 hours (with 15 mins intermission) 

Artistic Direction

Rathimalar Govindarajoo
Ishwar Muthkumaran

Mentor

Datuk Ramli Ibrahim

Lighting design

Sivarajah Natarajan

Featuring

Dancers of Sutra Foundation
Rathimalar Govindarajoo
Ishwar Muthkumaran
Kanishha Guna Balan
Tishaa Ishaana Villyn
Uma Devi Subramaniam
Haraniya Kanaparan
Kaaviyashri Tamil Maran
Geneieve Shakty

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With ‘First Sighting’, Sutra Foundation launches 2024 with the premiere of a new bharatanatyam production. ‘First Sighting’, featuring 8 Sutra performers, ready to wow the audience, will be the litmus test of the team’s dedication and hard work.

Over the years, Sutra has creatively stirred and charged the imagination of Malaysians with bountiful yield of excellent odissi productions, eventually establishing odissi as an integral facet of the diverse Malaysian dance scene. Sutra did this, to a certain extent, at the expense of its first love – the more known and widespread bharatanatyam, the elegant, chiseled and geometric South Indian classical dance.

Sutra, which at one time prided itself as the country’s leading creative force of this popular classical style, possessed, then, a formidable repertoire of one of the most brilliant bharatanatyam gurus, Padma Shri awardee Guru Adyar K Lakshman.

Lakshman Sir made his mark by injecting vigour, flair and complexity in the pure dance composition or thirmanams not ever seen then in the school/bani of Kalakshetra bharatanatyam. Though in possession of the legacy of his repertoire, Sutra, at the same time, riding high on the crest of its odissi successes, could not afford to be distracted into expanding its bharatanatyam forays.

Now, Sutra is keen to reclaim once again its previous exalted position in bharatanatyam.

With ‘First Sighting’, Sutra aims to rectify and apprise this state of affairs. It is confident to be able to do so with the energized presence of Rathimalar Govindarajoo and Ishwar Muthkumaran, the two dancer-teachers helming Sutra’s bharatanatyam faculty.

Rathimalar Govindarajoo and Ishwar Muthkumaran, both accomplished bharatanatyam
dancers, have steadily and surely brought back the shine to Sutra bharatanatyam dancers.

Rathimalar, a bharatanatyam dancer initially trained in Sutra, became the dance-star with the contemporary modern Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company UK; Ishwar Muthkumaran, on the other hand, is at the other end of the spectrum, steeped in traditional Tanjore Quartet background.

One can expect an interesting creative ‘clash’ of modernity within a highly traditional paradigm. The challenge for ‘First Sighting’, is not only to take on Lakshman Sir’s difficult and complex pure dance passages sprinkled with traditional works of the Tanjore Quartet, but to come up with fresh and interesting re-arrangements for group composition, while still retaining the classic and traditional aesthetics within the classical format of bharatanatyam.

Augmented with the strong mentorship of Ramli Ibrahim, the audience can anticipate
something different and exciting - nothing short of the extra-ordinary.

Enquiries: 019 3331092
https://www.cloudjoi.com/org/sutra-foundation