Aishwarya Raut’s Nadī
Aishwarya Raut unveils Nadī as part of the Totally Thames Festival - a dramatic duet that appropriately picks up on the river of life…
Aishwarya Raut and Antonello Sangirardi in Nadī. © @aaronakrong
Aishwarya Raut
Nadī
★★★★✰
London, Marie Rambert Studio @ Rambert
20 September 2024
@aishwarya__raut on Instagram
thamesfestivaltrust.org
As part of this year’s Totally Thames Festival, Aishwarya Raut premiered Nadī. It’s a piece that digs back into her Indian heritage, and appropriately, Nadī is the Marathi word for ‘river’. It’s not a title to be taken particularly literally: this is more about the flow of life, exploring
Raut, a former dancer with Rambert, came on my (choreographer) radar earlier this year when I reviewed a random Place Resolution festival performance and her What About The Rain? really jumped out at me. My review concluded; “Raut, a catherine wheel of ideas, looks one to follow.” And so to Rambert’s cavernous studio in Waterloo to see Raut and Antonello Sangirardi (also ex-Rambert) dance what was announced, on the night, as a work in progress.
Nadī opens with a brief nod to the village folklore inspiration with Raut projected in a crouching silhouette, her elastic limbs casting intriguing shapes and gestures. She’s making use of Jodi Rabinowitz’s lighting and set of majestic fabric drapes hanging from the ceiling, making the space thoughtfully theatrical. Sadly, though, the drapes obscure the opening and closing moments of the duet to some of us on the sides of the impromptu seating. A little exasperating, and bringing the dance action a little forward (just at the beginning and end) would be beneficial.
The duet is roughly 30 minutes long and consists of several unmaudlin scenes that show various aspects of relationships (or a relationship?) and works hand in hand with Dylan Tedaldi’s often Indian-inspired soundscape opening with echoey, haunting, vocals and tabla drums. As I found earlier, the choreography is thrillingly diverse, and you can see Raut’s original training in Bollywood, jazz and contemporary dance. It’s a terrific and accessible mix with the pulse and repetition of Bollywood mixed with more expressive and deeply telling dramatic movement. It helps that Raut and Sangirardi are fine dancers and the challenging movement flows effortlessly.
Although the fast sections excite, the slow and female-controlling vignettes are cleverly distinctive, particularly one where Raut binds her and Sangirardi’s head in a long length of red fabric, the two joined in blindness and manoeuvring for control. It’s as if they are lost in space. I also liked a section where they seemed magnetically attracted yet repelled, forever trying to embrace but condemned never to get there.
I was pleased by Nadī’s moves; again, it seemed a catherine wheel of ideas that could be extended. But what I missed was some discernible narrative arc to the work - something that linked all the various clever scenes together. Raut is still new to creating at this level, and I think that nous will develop - the main thing is that she has the distinctive movement vocabulary to make us sit up and want more - much more. Raut should definitely be on your radar.