Talacchanda

Talacchanda ‘the rhythm of the plan’ was a multi-disciplinary, international project, based on themes from Sanskrit theatre. Its core was an art and dance collaboration between visual artist Ranjana Thapalyal and Bharatanatyam dancer Anjana Rajan. The resulting exhibition and performances were responses to representations of women in Sanskrit drama and specific architectural concepts found in the Indian dramatic treatise, the Natya Sastra of Bharata.

Researched over a period of two years, it premiered in the British Council’s Queens Gallery in 2000, was re-imagined for Out of the Blue, Edinburgh in 2001 and then for the Tramway, Glasgow in 2002.

Imagined as a transitionary space of painting, photography, projection and dance, Talacchanda drew its interpretive imagery 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 recurrent structural motif of the salabhanjika, an upward reaching female form whose hand supported the vaulted ceilings of ancient wooden theatres.

A catalogue 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, and Jatinder Verma amongst others.