ARISI: Rice – Grains of Life

ARISI: Rice, is a cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary performance inspired by the grains of life that link humanity across Asia. In a shift away from epic storytelling, award-winning artistic director Aravinth Kumarasamy has imagined the dance production as episodic vignettes that intersect stages of rice cultivation with gestural rites and rituals in life stages where rice is the principal ingredient in these ceremonies. Dramaturged by Lim How Ngean, a performance-maker, dramaturg and dance researcher, ARISI takes the audience though a kaleidoscope of dynamic images brought to life through Bharatanatyam dance.

Apsaras Arts shares the stage with their traditional Balinese peers in dances choreographed by Professor I. Wayan Dibia collaborating with the company’s resident choreographer, Mohanapriyan Thavarajah. For the first time ever, Apsaras Arts collaborates with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra to melodically enhance the music score composed by Rajkumar Bharathi, and produced and directed by Sai Sharavanam. Featuring an immersive soundscape created through live Indian and Chinese instruments performed and sung by leading award-winning artists and other eminent Singapore Chinese Orchestra musicians, Balinese Gamelan and kecak choric singing to echo and accent certain scenes. The production also incorporates a powerful filmic layer of stories from former farmer migrants who eke an existence in developing foreign lands braving many climate changes.