Of offbeat dances: Plato's Cave

Besides dance and painting, Aesthetics and Philosophy were my favorite subjects in college. Abstract philosophical ideas appealed to my mind. This affinity towards great minds of yore still energizes me. I studied Plato among other western philosophers as an undergraduate student at the Delhi College of Art in New Delhi. At that time I did not imagine that he would revisit me as inspiration for dance.

Almost two decades later, my mentor Dr. Maya Kulkarni shared a vision for creating a dance based on Plato's Allegory of the Cave. While this allegory is well-known among philosophy and political science scholars-establishing Plato's concept of the ideal city-state and its governance, one might wonder: what does this have to do with dance? That question contained both our challenge and our magic. For Dr. Kulkarni, it represented an adventurous plunge into creative imagination. For me, it was an echo from the past and a jolt that awakened me from years of comfortable slumber within familiar dance themes.

Before continuing, I want to reflect on the creative partnership Maya and I have cultivated over fifteen years. Our collaboration has been forged through countless studio hours of dancing, listening to music, engaging in deep conversations about art and the relentless pursuit of freshness in our work. We've experimented with new movement patterns and costume designs, spent endless sessions examining the minutiae of dance creation and execution, and found equal joy wandering through art museums together, letting visual art inform our kinesthetic explorations.

Our shared reverence for painters ranging from Delacroix and Turner to V.S. Gaitonde and Anjolie Ela Menon has shaped our aesthetic dialogue. Some of our most significant creative breakthroughs emerged during unhurried meals and late-night conversations, i.e. those liminal moments when ideas crystallize unexpectedly.

What has always united us is a shared paradox: we are both deeply rooted in tradition and restless for creative breakthrough. This tension has become the generative force behind our collaborative work.

Translating Plato's allegory into movement presented a formidable challenge. The allegory demanded a rich tapestry of characters: the cave dwellers bound in chains, the procession of shadows flickering across stone walls, the philosopher-protagonist who breaks free from his community to ascend toward enlightenment, and the vibrant world beyond the cave populated by diverse beings. Above all, we needed to honor Plato's philosophical vision.

Undaunted by these complexities, we began development in October 2018. The creative process has involved crafting distinct movement vocabularies for twenty-five characters, designing a soundscape that weaves together Indian classical, folk, and Sufi musical traditions, and integrating diverse dance techniques to retell the allegory through an entirely new choreographic language.

The narrative unfolds through an ensemble of horses, lovers, birds, deer, a tiger, dervishes, elderly women, and idle men. They each carry forward the story's philosophical threads. During our initial explorations, we conceived many additional characters, but these were ultimately refined away through successive iterations of the work.

I composed both the soundscape and designed the costumes for the production.

In spite of the challenges or perhaps because of them this dance is dear to me. It became dear over time; like a child that one HAD to adopt. Now I obsess and fuss over it. I have begun to live its characters as though they came from within me. There is a compelling need every day to get on the dance floor and relive the allegory.

Dance represents the complete embodiment of an idea and its transmission through the body. As the dance evolves, so does the dancer. Plato's Allegory of the Cave continues to enrich me both as an artist and as a person.

-Mesma