Reflections on "Antaranga: Between You and Me"

Dance writing, August 2024

As the summer came to a gradual close, I sat in on a few rehearsals for Antaranga: Between You and Me.

I've grown up around the community and movement of Ananya Dance Theatre, and with each year's passing, I find new resonance with the ever-emerging movements and narratives. Antaranga illustrates just what I have been desiring: that whole and tender recognition, connection, and healing we can only find in one another. The profound and enduring magic of generous solidarity and intimacy in moments of crisis—it is the only way out. Here are writings that came up for me while witnessing the rehearsal process for Antaranga: Between You and Me.

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Antaranga begins in a world of shadows. I see bodies quaking with wounds borne, dancers reaching through darkness, calling to one another, to the ground and sky. They weave arms and branches through the air, perform ritualistic, circular, sweeping movements in attempts to search, to heal. The collective pain and unrest leads to collective emerging resistance. And still it waxes and wanes quick before my eyes. I think of the ongoing genocides, the constant turbulence and uncertainty. I wonder how can we resist disorientation and isolation, find and trust one another, recognize the wound and go from there.

i. shadow
the body cracks as fire. split wood.
	torn paper.
do i see/know/hold
listen to me
	feel me in your ground

my touch to guide your 
	hurting hand
my breath to conjure
my breath as light for your eyes to see

strike the ground
see what you call to
what she brings forth—
branches,
stories,
	reptilian remembering
					

i get the sense we move
	together as we are
		apart 

do you feel it? 
	bubbling
		churning
			squirming

                                                                        unrested
                                                                  emerging

entangling limbs. searching eyes. vibrating bodies.
32. 16. 8.

and you.

hear this
	foot to ground
		hand to chest
	    rise risE RISE

		WIND
		TIME
		YEARS&YEARS&YEARS&

	a sorcerer
	a storm
	a spell
	a song

make me a boat of your magic

how long does a wound take to heal?

are you listening?

…

From the shadows, the dancers are thrown into a world of mirrors. A lone dancer sings while swirling and stirring the air and ground in front of her, haunted by her own voice, by her own conjurings. I think of the ancestral memories we hold in our bodies, of sisterhoods and motherhoods that make up the fabric of our identities, that become warped and painful in disconnection and generational traumas. In worlds of deformity, we become unable to reckon with ourselves and those we hold closest. Dancers heave into one another, grasping through knots and shards with hands quick and sharp. In this sharpness, the body becomes a resistance, and dancers come together to create unending lines and curves. Suddenly, they break into climactic, manic laughter, a moment of not quite joy—a stolen, dangerous ecstasy. Extremes of exhaustion, grief, and rapture meld into one. And finally, twisted relief is interrupted by a catharsis—shaken, silent. A beginning…

ii. mirror
a daughter’s haunting
a mother’s doubt

                                          I don’t recognize you

Mouth gapes wide
yields shrunken whispers

can’t see
	can’t hardly feel
prophets faltering
body of rusted joints

                                          I don’t recognize you
                                          but I will find you
                                          I reach for you
                                          I push my edges to find yours
                                          Dreams have teeth too
                                          Find the pattern
                                          Find my synchronicity 
                                          Make it yours
                                          Follow the path
                                          Follow each other
                                          Find the crevice
                                          Reach & reach &
		                                          	rise
	                                          	Be fierce & never
	                                          	     still.
	                                          	let our lines
	                                          	       blurrrrrrr

What happens when joy is a danger?
when silence becomes survival?

Where is the end of suffering.
Look. 
Look
Up. 

Carry the wave
Carry the weight

Dream of rainforest—
Full to the brim.

…

Dancers enter slow into the final world, a world of honey. Gradually, each dancer is called into the space, all bringing their own offerings and nurturings. In a beautiful passage of healing, they sweep the space gently and swiftly with brooms and hands, they awaken the ground with strong foot vibrations—a ritualistic cleansing, a spell cast. Soon their arms link to form honeycombs. They push water, they pull their heartstrings, they make the wind. Together, moving like the tide in infinite circularities, they enter a sort of liminal state of desiring, of seduction, of sweetness. It pours from their cells and eyes. Their hips carve space with generosity, they call out in earned indulgence, jubilation, and release. There is a slippery viscosity as honey drips through their fingers—a palpable feeling that our journeys will continue. As the dancers move to one another, they move to us. They call us forth.

iii. honey
cast a spell
   caress the circles
       let them sing

let broken shards
    strike a match
         spark a light
let it flicker
   be gentle

it will take flight
it will become 
	  the sky

light which sings with the wind
wind chimes & sea birds
call to the ocean with your magic
	fly to me.
	fly home.
Trace the sky with your open wings, unbroken
Here is the path.
	Here is the river, unraveling.
		the river that finds the ocean.

in whirlpools of sweetness

trace the lines of you
	           of I
	             of we

let the sun pour over us
let the honey drip

through interlaced fingers
through desiring embrace

						in your eyes,
						      I catch 
patience

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…In a space that raised me, that gave me a deeper awareness of myself, that gave me my understanding of art, that truly shaped my worldview, I see intimacies building in real time—both new and familiar. I see artists reaching for each other, peering across generations and borders—laughing, remembering, hurting, listening. There is a steady urgency. They find each other in conversation, in movement, in earth vibrations, in sound touch, in pouring sun and imagined sky. The space between self and others—you and me—it deepens, it blossoms.

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