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From: Neha Chandra
Date: 18 Nov 2010
Time: 04:01:58 -0600
New Delhi: The American Center will be presenting aerial performers Project Bandaloop in stunning action atop Jeevan Bharati, the LIC Building in New Delhi on November 26, 2010 at 1 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. Given the location and height of the building, the shows will be visible from several points in and around Connaught Place, Parliament Street and Janpath. The event has been produced by Seher in cooperation with Delhi Tourism. Project Bandaloop is renowned globally for its aerial dance performances that create a blend of dance, sport, ritual, and environmental awareness. Inspired by the challenge of bringing climbing and rappelling into their choreography, Bandaloop draws on aerial, vertical and horizontal movements to craft unique dances, many site-specific. Under the artistic direction of Amelia Rudolph, their work explores the relationship between movement and gravity and stimulates viewers’ awareness of their natural and built environments. Since its launch in 1991, the company has performed for close to half a million people. Project Bandaloop is arguably the first company in the world to explore an art form that fuses movement with mountaineering techniques. Bandaloop performs in natural and urban settings, in theaters, halls, towers, bridges, skyscrapers, mountains. Though the group has performed in India last year, too, (in Mumbai at a private function and in Mussoorie at founder Amelia Rudolph’s alma mater Woodstock) this is their first performance in New Delhi. They will start their 2010 tour with a show at the historic Golconda Fort in Hyderabad. The sharp contrast with Jeevan Bharati, the glass, stone and metal structure created by architect Charles Correa in the 1980s, sits well with Bandaloop’s own philosophy of fusion and creativity. Three decades ago, Correa was criticized for being too futuristic – a word that has been used for Bandaloop too, though in a more glowing reference. According to the U.S. Embassy’s Cultural Affairs Officer Michael Macy, Bandaloop represents America’s spirit of innovation and creativity. “Bandaloop’s style is also in a sense its substance. The group has broken new ground even as its dancers leave us mesmerized by their poetic mid-air movements. In presenting this extremely non-traditional group, we want to focus on the potential of the human mind to explore, redefine and cross boundaries. It was, therefore, important to us to reach out to as many people as we could by presenting the show in a public place, and making it accessible for all.” Interestingly, Bandaloop founder Amelia Rudolph spent much of her childhood in India. An alumnus of Woodstock School, she gave her first public dance performance as a seven-year-old student of Bharatnatyam in Jaipur. Brief Profile of Amelia Rudolph, Artistic Director and Founder Amelia Rudolf is a choreographer, dancer/athlete, public speaker and teacher. Her work is informed by aesthetics, non-traditional relationships with gravity, ecology, natural and built spaces, community and human relationships. She founded Project Bandaloop in 1991, bringing together dance, climbing and varied off-the-ground movement through site-specific work on cliffs, buildings and in theaters. She teaches youth in Oakland through Destiny Arts Center, lectures as a public speaker and is involved in Creative Capital’s Artist Development Program. Amelia holds Bachelors and Masters degree in comparative religion from Swarthmore College and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Her intellectual and artistic sensibilities inform her work inspiring practical, spiritual, theoretical and political creativity. Living in India for five years, especially the years she spent in the central Himalaya, have influenced her as a global citizen and as an artist. Her work has explored site-specific dance on buildings and cliffs in Africa, Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Italy, Lithuania, Oman, twelve states in North America and Portugal. Amelia is an artist/athlete who has been a student of movement since she started taking ballet lessons at the age of six. Developing first as a dancer/gymnast, her early training was with the Ellis Duboulet and Lou Conte studios in Chicago. She spent seven years at the school of the Hubbard Street Dance Company where she became a company apprentice at 17. She has performed with Mark Morris, Dance Brigade, Clay Taliaferro and Sarah Elgart among others. She competed as a gymnast for eight years and was captain of the women's cross-country team in college. She began climbing in 1989 in California’s Sierra Nevada range and her experiences have ranged from back-country peaks and big walls to sport climbing and three seasons as a national competitor. She began to surf in 2005.