Theatre Review: Jiva Dance Company Presents The Four Horsemen
“I never noticed death when it came suddenly in a black vehicle. My mind was too deep in the web most time-led lives fashion.
“I was wedded to one life while dreaming of another.”
These two lines stood out to me during the Four Horsemen, by Jiva Dance, and left me floored by their depth, especially as they intertwined with the dances before me. There is a sweet irony in living most of your life dreaming of another life only to leave the one you have so as to enter one you have never known. To the Four Horsemen, we can only be who we are…for a moment, for a life, for an eternity. Yet, is our desire to be something else, something more, that is apart of the process to becoming who we are.
At Dixon Place, the 60 minute dance began with its narrator presenting The Four Horsemen, and the scenes they will find themselves in. This part is vital to understanding the dance and certain motions.Each dancer, Sonali Skandan, Aishwarya Madhav, Amrita Doshi, and Bharathi Penneswaran, approaches their role as both The Four Horsemen and their “victims” with beauty and hesitance. If there are two things no one every wants to be in life, it is the victim or the villain. Ironically, villains often play “the victims” while actual victims vilify themselves. From the starving mother, angry at her body for not producing milk for her baby during a famine, to the young woman enraptured by ambitions that take her from being present in her present, Four Horsemen portrays these “Knights of The Apocalypse” with swords molded in ironed desire. Yet, unlike most Biblical interpretations of the Apocalypse, they, too, appear as unwilling participants in the natural order.
It is an intriguing notion because it is one we rarely ask in terms of religiosity or spirituality: Did God want to be God? For all that we question who we are and what others do, it feels both exciting and terrifying to ask if the universe wanted to be The Universe because, in the end, your desires do not diminish your responsibilities. Those questions play into a greater notion of suffering as dancing scenes play of a wife mourning her lover’s entrance into war or a woman accepting death of her family and herself, play out before you. The magic is that all these conclusions and thoughtful philosophies are stirred by you watching. These dancers turns their bodies into a language; as if every hand-motion or foot stomp is a hieroglyphic. By the end of their act, you swear they could be painted on the sacred walls of pyramids because they are so visually potent.
With a script by Shiv Subramaniam and choreography by Maya Kulkami and Sonali Skandan, Four Horsemen was a gorgeous representation of Indian arts and had the community ‘s full backing and support. I cannot reiterate enough how special it is when you see your community united and admired through art. Yet, Four Horsemen is also a dance tale of wisdom. Each of these women, as horsemen/ humans, chose a role, and their sufferings measured whether they were worthy of it. From being a lover to being a mother, it is a tricky question to ask if suffering is deserved or necessary because, in the end, it simply is apart of life. Yet, Four Horsemen asked its audience to see pain like a roadblock; it only hinders path until you, finally, finish building over it. For More Information on More Jiva Performing Arts Click Here.
