SOUTH AFRICA: Tradition awakes in an explosive new vision of east west dance in 'spectacular' RED

Record ID: 453270

  • Title: SOUTH AFRICA: Tradition awakes in an explosive new vision of east west dance in 'spectacular' RED
  • Date: 31st July 2006
  • Summary: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (AUGUST 10, 2006) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF THE DANCERS PERFORMING
  • Embargoed: 15th August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: South Africa
  • Country: South Africa
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVADPJXUJ6FFM6X1Z7XN84FC902O
  • Story Text: RED, the 'Indian Dance Spectacular' does not focus on a particular story, but on the exceptional dancers. Though billed as an evening of Indian dance, the show boasts a far more eclectic array of dance styles.
    The show is a celebration of dozens of styles of movement and dance and abounds with flamenco and salsa, capoeira and hip-hop. There is also belly dance and kathkali, break dance and ballet. All these styles are brought together by their influences on and from India.
    "RED is a celebration, that's all the show has ever been. It's a festival for me, it's an excuse to watch some fantastically talented dancers get up on stage and show us what they can do, and that's an evening of good entertainment for me and hope that people will see that too," says Raza Jaffrey, creator of the show and the original star of Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of AR Rahman's Bombay Dreams.
    The RED team was not just looking for performers who could rigourously obey dance steps, although choreographer Alan Harding and his team will make sure they can perfectly perform all the steps, but also for dancers who will bring their own personality to their performance, as Jaffrey said.
    The show has two of the UK's most renowned Indian percussionists who are in South Africa to keep up the beats and bring the audience to their feet with their traditional dhols and tablas.
    A whopping 186 costumes were made in South Africa from metres and metres of the most lustrous and dazzling fabric. Each dancer is expected to wear twelve different costumes during the course of the show. They are also adding and removing individual items of clothing to create various looks for the different numbers.
    The RED sets, also manufactured locally, are characterised by silk drapes, gauzes, cut cloths, rostra and a projection screen. There are about a dozen physical set changes, although the use of projections means that the set will go through a number of different looks.
    Pulling together centuries of both the traditional and the new, RED is a colourful and exotic vision of whirling saris and jangling bells, delicate candlelit ceremonies and the explosion of pure performance.
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