Big Dance 2008 is coming to West London venue Watermans from 8 -13 July 2008. The week offers free drop in classes, performances and films all centred around dance with street dance, bharatnatyam and bollywood all being represented. The week starts with drop in classes with dance coach Natasha Mckenzie. Other events include a performance of 'The Wife's Letter', a dance solo based on the writings of Rabindranath Tagore; a community dance show, performances of 'Ether' and 'Bhakti' by Angika dance company and a dance workshop focussed on street dance.

Big Dance 2008 is a week-long celebration of dance in all its styles and forms and aims to get as many people dancing as possible and to encourage people to keep dancing year round.

THE WIFE'S LETTER
Wednesday 9th July @7.45pm
Tickets: £10 (£8) (30 mins + 25 mins)

The Wife’s Letter (2007) is a contemporary dance-theatre solo based on Streer Patra (1914), a controversial pro-feminist short story written by the Nobel laureate poet and author Rabindranath Tagore. Integrating film, music, text and dance, the piece revisits and re-interprets Mrinal’s story and sets it in contemporary London. Weaving together the visually iconic, vibrant and contrasting worlds of Brick Lane and Hampstead Heath, The Wife’s Letter combines choreography and film to create an unusual theatre experience.

+ Home and the World is a contemporary reworking of Tagore’s novel through the language of dance, theatre and music. In 1905, Bengal is partitioned and it’s a time of escalating violence, of chauvinistic nationalism and rampant militancy. At the heart of this novel is Bimala, a young Bengali bride, caught in a maze of passion, adultery, narcissism, betrayal and sacrifice. The production confronts through its narrative the aggression and terror of our own age.

The show is an independent artistic collaboration featuring filmmaker Sangeeta Datta, composer Soumik Datta and will be performed by dancer-choreographer Prarthana Purkayastha. She has trained in Navanritya (New Dance), a South Asian contemporary dance methodology; she has performed and taught across India and London Contemporary Dance School. Her collaboration includes Akademi’s Awaz for the Trafalgar Square Festival (2006), Versedance (Goethe Institute-Kolkata 2003, 2004) and the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) funded Highway Performance Circuits (2001).

COMMUNITY DANCE SHOW
Thursday 10 July @ 7.45pm
Tickets: £2

An evening showcasing the talents of dance groups based in the West London area, featuring dance of any style and any level – beginners, amateur or semi-professionals artists can be part of this week’s celebration.

ANGIKA - ETHER & BHAKTI
Choreography & Artistic Direction
Mayuri Boonham & Subathra Subramaniam
Friday 11 & Saturday 12 July @7.45pm
Tickets: £10 (£8) (1 hr + 40 mins with interval)

Angika presents an evening of two inspiring works that demonstrates the company’s innovative contemporary approach and vitality to the rich vocabulary of classical Bharatanatyam dance.

In Ether the dancers explore the contrast between energised space and nothingness. In Indian philosophy the Ether or ‘Akasa’ pervades the Universe as the invisible vehicle of life and sound. Bhakti, which has gained mass appeal on tour, communicates a startlingly powerful and imaginative interpretation of the beauty of the human experience of devotion.

MOVES & GROOVES: STREET DANCE DROP IN
Led by Natasha McKenzie, Community dance coach
3.30 – 5.30pm Saturday 12 July & 1.30 – 6.30pm Sunday 13 July
FREE

Learn funky street dance routines with our resident community dance coach in this taster drop in dance workshop session. Participants will learn the basics of street dance through the use of routines from R & B tunes whilst enabling them to find their ‘feet’ and create their own unique style. This is an opportunity to improve on your performance skills.