Kick Start To IGNITE: Scrambled Eggs

Dance is just not about perfect moves and postures, it is an emotion that is expressed and felt through the body. It has a magic that keeps you engrossed and when everything is just perfect you cannot help but let the magic take over you. As the weekend came to an end, the most awaited IGNITE- Festival, of International Contemporary Dance 2015, an initiative by GATI Dance Forum in association with Sangeet Natak Akademi, began its journey of eight days with 22 performances by 80 artists (national and international) with none other than Terence Lewis Contemporary Dance Company’s production- Scrambled Egg or Sunny Side Up.

Terence Lewis presents his company’s production: Scrambled Eggs… or Sunny Side Up

This season of IGNITE festival aims at informing the audience about the beauty and the grace involved in the contemporary dance form. Not only would there be performances but also workshops to introduce the correct postures and important elements about this dance form and also an interactive session stretched over three days long to impart knowledge and show how the artists are able to delve and express every emotion in this form.

What makes contemporary a different dance form is not the story that it portrays, but how it is interpreted by the audience. It is an intellectual dance form that enables the audiences to do their own guess work. The beauty of the performance lies in the postures and techniques involved in each step which is quite visible.

This weekend, Siri fort Auditorium was seen completely filled with fans of Terence and the lovers of dance. The performance began with the hot celebrity artist, Terence Lewis, briefing about how he completed a hotel management course but was destined to take up and make a name in the field of dance.
Scrambled Eggs or Sunny Side Up unfolds various stages encountered during the span of human life- some imaginary and some very relatable. Terence, who introduced us to each act before it started helped the audience to travel and feel and understand the entire sequence.

Terence Lewis interacting with audience during the performance

What caught the eyeand won the hearts of people was the act depicting the innocence in the love of a 14 years old couple- the age where you are pretty much confused about what to do and hormones are taking over you. The emotion and the confusion were aptly expressed and travelled across the audience, which was evident through the non-stop applause.

The next act, (which I personally fell in love with) was an act where Terence explains how he saw at a party two people- a woman in her late 40’s and a man in his late 30’s- both very strong and adamant, getting attracted to each other and stepping out for a bed-room scene. The entire piece was plotted on what happens when two strong headed and dominant people want to have sex with each other. The aggression, the love, the wildness and the anger of not being the controller could not have been expressed in a better way than this. And yes, it successfully made everyone feel erotic.

Another act was about the three guys that you would witness at the Gym- the Macho, the Flirt and the Serious guy, where each dancer flips their manly personality to a feminine one when the egg flips. Each one of them approaches the audience and tries to woo women and if failed, they try to woo a man. This piece was extremely interactive and funny, since the characters on stage reminded us of someone we know and brought the thoughts into reality (well, the guys were petrified, the moment the dancers would slip into feminine personality and approach them.)

Terence introducing one of the acts in his production Scrambled Eggs… or Sunny Side Up

What made this performance a super hit was the quality of dancers. Terence made sure that he introduced the international level of dancing to the audience and just not give it away. Secondly, the performance was very interactive which helped the audience to keep their interest intact and excited about what is going to happen next. And lastly, the music, probably keeping in mind the kind of music Indian audiences are involved in, Terence kept the music filled with beats and choreographed accordingly, which made the performance so engrossing and captivating that no one could move their eyes balls on anything else but the performance.

So yes! Scrambled eggs or sunny side up, was indeed a performance to witness and enjoy. The start to the festival was a success, now lets see how the entire season goes.