VIDEO: Works & Process Presents L'ORIENT by Kamala Sankaram and Preeti Vasudevan

L'Orient is a multidisciplinary production produced by Thresh, a New York-based performing arts collaborative. The production recontextualizes the Orientalist gaze and its representation of women and people of color in the classical arts.

The project envisions Lakmé, the lead character in the eponymous 1883 opera by Léo Delibes, as a twenty-first-century woman situated in the chaotic environment of reality television. Today's Lakmé represents the voice of a modern woman questioning her constrained role in a patriarchal society.

This provocative work features choreography based on the principles of ballet and the Indian dance tradition Bharatanatyam, in dialogue with a score of Carnatic songs (South Indian classical music), operatic vocals, percussion, electronics (including amplified pointe), and a libretto that includes texts in French, Indian Telugu, and English.

Check out the video!

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L'Orient

Libretto by Catherine Filloux

Music by Kamala Sankaram

Choreography by Preeti Vasudevan

Filmed by Dancing Camera

Works & Process has announced three newly commissioned video performances developed during Works & Process bubble residencies at Bethany Arts Community, Catskill Mountain Foundation, and Mount Tremper Arts that were sequenced directly into filming on location at The New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, facilitated by the Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

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