Run-Riot chats to internationally-acclaimed choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh ahead of her companies program of work in celebration of their 25th anniversary.

As part of the celebrations this autumn The Shobana Jeyasingh Company will be performing their new work Strange Blooms. Jeyasingh works with Gabriel Prokofiev, a classically trained composer to remix early baroque music with all it's exuberance, ornamentation and contrast.

This appears in double bill with Configurations, Jeyasingh's seminal 1988 piece celebrated for its exhilarating speed and stunning detail.
 
The Shobana Jeyasingh Dance company has created over 55 works, which reach audiences of up to 30,000. Therefore, it is only expected that they have collated an exciting and diverse program to celebrate this truly remarkable landmark.
 
'We remain at the forefront of the fascinating and complex debates around cultural cohesion that define urban life in the twenty-first century'
 
Being performed at the SouthBank Centre, Strange Blooms is sure to be something special and not to be missed.
 
Run-Riot: Could you explain where the inspiration behind your latest work Strange Blooms came from?

Shobana: My ideas usually come from many quarters and it’s the same with Strange Blooms.

I have been visiting laboratories of neuroscientists and microbiologists as part of another project and have been struck by the dynamic - almost combative - quality of life at the cellular level which new technology is making it possible to observe.

I also looked at speeded-up footage of sunflower saplings moving in search of light and Morning Glory tendrils whipping themselves towards a nearby support.
 
The tenacity of flowering plants as a species seems to me to parallel the cultural evolution of people in cities.

I’m reading a wonderful book where a character is challenged by a strange plant in a new country. It makes her look at plants in a new, unsentimental light.

The Karl Blossfeldt exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. Blossfeldt was a 19th century photographer who made very striking images of plants and flowers.

Ted Hughes’ poems Snowdrop, Thistles, Fern.

Run-Riot: Which choreographic techniques did you explore with your dancers in creating this piece?

Shobana: The creativity of the dancers in generating the vocabulary that contributes to the "script" of the dance work is vital. This is usually done through a lot of task-based "physical thinking" using a wide range of stimuli. The studio becomes almost a laboratory as everyone carries on with individual or group experiments based on the concept of the dance work. Choreography, for me, is to find and shape a coherent narrative out of what is generated there.

Run-Riot: You work with an incredible creative team, how does a group like this form and what opportunities does it give to the overall choreographic process?

Shobana: Choosing the creative collaborators – and this very much includes the dancers - is part of the overall artistic direction of a production. People come through various ways. Some are people that I have worked with over many years and some are new people whose work has intrigued me or been suggested to me by friends and colleagues. It is good to have a mix of both. I probably start talking to the composer and the designer months ahead of meeting the dancers in the studio so they play a huge role in the development and clarification of an idea. Talking to them and sharing my ideas also involves being shaped by their responses and input.

Run-Riot: Strange Blooms appears in a double bill with Configurations, a seminal 1988 piece – why was it important to place these two pieces together?

Shobana: Their meeting together in the double bill was mooted by Wendy Martin (Head of Performance and Dance at Southbank Centre). It is our 25th anniversary and it seems apt to place the earliest with the latest. It shows me how little and how much my choreographic practice has changed! The cast for both pieces could not be more different. Configurations has virtuoso Indian classical dancers and Strange Blooms has wonderful contemporary dancers. However I recognise a continuity in compositional obsessions and choices.

Run-Riot: Congratulations on your 25th Anniversary. With such an amazing repertoire of work is there one piece which you could identify as your favourite?

Shobana: Thank you! I could not have kept the company going for 25 years without the help and support of the numerous generous and hardworking people who have been part of SJD in various capacities.

Choosing a favourite piece is a tough one! There is always something that I could have done differently or better in every single one.

Run-Riot: What influence has your background in Indian dance had on the development of your own work? How has the audience’s attitude towards Indian Contemporary Dance changed over the last 25 years in your view?

Shobana: Any kind of classical dance gives you a feel and taste for extremes of movement. Bharatha Natyam has a unique weighting of the arms which gives them an incisive quality - this is now part of my palette.

I think the idea that Indian and Contemporary could be interchangeable has been gaining ground, especially with the political and economic construct of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). The international profile of India has changed considerably in the last 25 years. Like all countries, India has always had its past and its present. The difference is that now it is possible to hear the way in which Indians themselves, including those of the diaspora like myself, tell their stories - with their own personal choices of what they remember or invent instead of being shouted down by the din of stereotypes created during the colonial times.

This shift is beginning to have an impact on how people see the work of Indian choreographers. However this pace of enlightenment is much faster in the field of literature and film than in dance.

Run-Riot: Are there any artists on your wish list that you have yet to work with?

Shobana: Too numerous to mention!

Run-Riot: What has been your most prized accolade?

Shobana: My teenage son having a go at the movement in my dance work Faultline in our kitchen!

Run-Riot: When watching your work, what gives you the most satisfaction?

Shobana: Dance making is a very volatile activity since it is principally written on the bodies of other people. To recognise something that had been an idea, to see it having a tangible quality despite the slipperiness of its medium is always satisfying.

Run-Riot: Could you tell us about your plans for 2014?

Shobana: My residency at Kings Cultural Institute will culminate in a series of five short films which capture the first-time engagement with dance by various academics.

A short film for a European exhibition on Mitosis (cell division) called Lens on Life commissioned by Artakt. I will be learning all about the subject from the inspirational Professor Kim Nasmyth from Oxford University.

Starting rehearsals for a new and rather dark work commissioned by ROH for the Linbury. We’ll be announcing this later in the year.

Shobana Jeyasingh Dance
25th Anniversary
Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre
Tuesday 3 December 2013 -
Wednesday 4 December 2013

Book tickets

Strange Blooms: a new work celebrating 25 years from Shobana Jeyasingh on Vimeo.