Talacchanda

Talacchanda ‘the rhythm of the plan’ was a visual art and dance collaboration between Ranjana Thapalyal and Bharata Natyam dancer Anjana Rajan. The exhibition and performance was a response to representations of women in Sanskrit drama and architectural concepts in the ancient Indian dramatic treatise the Natya Sastra of Bharata. Researched over a period of two years, it premiered in the British Counci’s Queens Gallery in 2000, was re-imagined for Out of the Blue, Edinburgh in 2001 and then for the Tramway, Glasgow in 2002.

A transitionary space of painting, photography, projection and dance, imagery was drawn from chapters two, six, and thirty-two of the Natya Sastra. This included references to the plan of the vikrista natya mandapa (middle sized rectangular theatre), the navarasa theory of the eight essential emotions to be evoked in all art forms, and the recurrant structural motif of the salabhanjika, an upward reaching female form whose hand supported the vaulted ceilings of ancient wooden theatres.

A catlaogue with essays by the artists and several specially commissioned texts by scholars, dramatists and writers was published for Talacchanda, Glasgow, 2002. Invited text authors include Kum Kum Bahguguna, Hem Bhatnagar, Suhayl Saadi, Jatinder Verma, Ruth Vanita.