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The Knocking Within Press

SMR Culture Plus

Richard Sylvain

Captivating, mystical, fierce and brilliantly successful. 

 

EvidanceRadio

Ted Fox

 

Wendy Jehlen has created a rivetting and fascinating new language in dance that reflects the society in which we live.

 

Choreographer Wendy Jehlen explores the relationship between two lovers from different cultures within the context of dreaming. It is at first clear who is dreaming. Gradually their dreams overlap. Are they dreaming in unison? Is each taking on the other’s dreams? Are we maybe seeing actual reality?The dominant dance form is capoeira infused with other multicultural and contemporary dance vocabularies. Begins with wide fluid extension of hands, arms and legs. Reflects innocence and happiness. Mood changes as Tai Chi hand and arm movements become angry and threatening. Lashing out. A slap in the face. Distrust. Jealousy. Attraction/Repulsion. Circling. Glaring at each other. Assessing. Wary. Woman trying to voice her feelings. Other controlling. In one scene, she speaks in sign language. He speaks in Hindi. Many in the audience will not understand what either is saying. This adds a sense of real life. Different languages are spoken around us and we feel alienated and frustrated by our lack of understanding.The text is from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. Another culture in another time. Hands sliding repeatedly down knees and thighs. Opening outwards. An aborted baby?

 

Text in Ophelia's voice: "There’s rue for you and here’s some for me." Rue, in Shakespeare's time, was a major cause of abortion and associated with adultery. There are also the words of Lady Macbeth, in her famous blood-on-hands dialogue.  Even the music with flamenco over the capoeira reflects the melting pot of the world where all cultures merge.

 

A painterly feel in blocking, aesthetics and lighting design by Stephen Petrilli. Near the end, the lovers on the floor, dreaming. She is lying on her side, facing the audience. Her eye opens wide. Looking at us, the multicultural watchers.

 

Ends with them united again, the facade of a loving couple back in place. Will the cycle continue?

 

INvisibles

in-visibles.ca

Karla Nievas

Dans le cadre du Festival St-Ambroise Fringe Montréal, la chorégraphe et danseuse Wendy Jehlen vient présenter sa pièce The Knocking Within avec la ANIKAI Dance Theater jusqu’au 23 juin au MAI. Pendant le spectacle de 50 minutes, on peut voir les protagonistes raconter l’histoire d’un couple à partir de leurs rêves s’inspirant de 4 histoires de Shakespeare. Drame, angoisses, tragédies, et surtout des émotions bien réelles sont au rendez-vous.

 

Très bien accueillie par le public en Inde et aux États-Unis, la pièce The Knocking Within est une expérience assez intéressante du point de vue linguistique, mais surtout émotionnel. On assiste à un beau mélange entre l’anglais, l’hindi et la langue des signes américaine. Parmi ces trois langues, je ne parle que la première et je suis presque certaine que c’était le cas pour la plupart des gens du public! Malgré mon incompréhension des mots, je suis arrivée à saisir le message par les mouvements corporels et par les émotions que les personnages dégageaient.

 

En entrevue, Wendy Jehlen me racontait que le but du spectacle est justement de transmettre une histoire par les mouvements de danse. La pièce vise donc à stimuler notre compréhension personnelle sans égard d’une langue en particulier, mais plutôt sur la base de ce que l’on voit sur scène.

Adapter Shakespeare pour Jehlen était une occasion de raconter une histoire où les personnages sont complexes, comme dans la vie réelle! L’idée centrale tourne autour du fait que le couple de danseur représente n’importe quel couple qui s’aime et qui souffre pour toutes sortes de raisons. Puis, comme Pradhuman Nayak, le protagoniste mâle de la pièce, remarque, on n’a pas besoin de connaître toute l’oeuvre de Shakespeare pour comprendre ce qui se passe entre les amoureux sur scène. Il faut toutefois avoir la volonté de s’engager dans la pièce, d’embarquer dans ce voyage de sentiments et de cauchemars qui hantent deux personnes qui partagent leurs vies. Et cela n’est pas un défi, car la brillante interprétation des deux artistes emporte le public dans ce tourbillon d’émotions qui nous pousse à réfléchir sur notre propre « knocking within ».

 

 

jammerundschauder.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/the-knocking-within/
Leah Lange
(blog review of The Knocking Within at The New York International Fringe Festival)

“In their dance-theater piece The Knocking Within, Wendy Jehlen and Pradhuman Nayak have built a montage of dance-theater based on the lovers’ nightmare. A fantastic foundation for a duet piece, and their addition of Shakespeare as their starting point made it all the more intriguing.

There were some high points in the show which deserve mention. Jehlen and Nayak succeeded in “weaving,” as they say in their description. Their bodies were almost continually woven together, their intertwining limbs seamlessly leading into lifting and flipping each other. In another scene, they mirrored each other without touching. The photographic impression of the short flash of light on them sleeping side by side was a spark of creativity…simple and beautiful…

Perhaps the strongest moment of the entire show was Jehlen’s solo dance about two thirds of the way through. Here, she devoted herself exclusively to her dance and succeeded brilliantly in her expression of desire, insecurity, pain, surprise, rage, and submission. We did not have to know if they were Ophelia’s or Desdemona’s lines going through her mind as she choreographed this; the result stood on its own.”

Houston Chronicle
“A touch of Shakespeare in ANIKAI debut”
Theodore Bale | September 5, 2012


Shakespeare isn't far behind artistic director Wendy Jehlen, in Houston this week for ANIKAI Dance Theater’s Texas debut.


Jehlen's latest work with frequent collaborator Pradhuman Nayak, "The Knocking Within," has influences from "Hamlet," a bit of "Macbeth," themes from "Othello" and "Twelfth Night," and even ideas from the bloody, early Roman tragedy "Titus Andronicus."


Terror, Jehlen says, is another common denominator, "And also jealousy, horrible relationships, those kinds of things. Shakespeare's plays, as well, have much of what happens in dreams, and here I am playing also with how our dream life remixes and re-interprets our waking life."


One of many featured works at the Houston Fringe Festival, a three-week celebration of independent performing arts and artists that continues through Sept. 15, "The Knocking Within" is an hour-long "text-based performance work" by an accomplished choreographer who considers herself a storyteller.

Deccan Herald, Delhi, India
“Dancing to the Bard’s tragedies”
Henna Rakheja | Jan 21, 2013
CONTEMPORARY NARRATIVE

The imagination became vivid when ANIKAI dance group from the US projected it through various dance forms, united in one story, during the staging of The Knocking Within, at the recently-concluded Bharat Rang Mahotsav.

The one-hour dance-theater piece was based on the bard’s tragedies – Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, Twelfth Night and Titus Andronicus, narrated through seamless movements inspired from dance forms such as Capoeira (a Brazilian dance form), Kalaripayattu (an Indian martial art form from Kerala), Bharatanatyam and West African dance. Along with these, the dialogues were delivered in three languages –Hindi, English and American sign language. Such was the layering of this piece of work.

Performed by co-creators, Wendy Jehlen and Pradhuman Nayak, the play narrated the story of two lovers. Ophelia’s flower monologue from Hamlet began and ended the play which took many twists and turns such as Macbeth’s washing off blood from his hands and Hamlet is getting angry at Orphelia. More surprisingly, the male protagonist (played by Pradhuman Nayak) replied in Hindi, hinting that their love transcends the boundary of language.

Soon the audiences witnessed the downfall of their love. The friction that thus developed was represented through fierce dance steps and an artificial fighting with tabla beats added to the otherwise mellow sitar and guitar music. It worked well for the narration. Also, in the absence of many dialogues, the focus shifted to the light which was not superficial at all. Synchronised well with the emotions of the performance, the lights added to the play where the theatrics failed to complete the picture. Especially in the scene where the female performer (Wendy Jehlen) is imprisoned, the light effects visually signified her circumstance.

© ANIKAYA Dance Theater

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