Performances

Heartstone Dance Drama / Storytelling Performances

The main Heartstone exhibition events usually incorporate a stage performance bringing the story presented through images ‘to life’ in another form. These dance-dramas are led by Sitakumari, in her capacity as the principal dancer/storyteller for Heartstone who has worked with many different dance companies over the years including Laban Contemporary Dance, dancers from Scottish Ballet, Dance School of Scotland and at the Liverpool Cathedral event on March 31^st 2016, with talented dancers drawn from Liverpool Hope University. This has led to the formation of Heartstone’s ‘Moving Lives Dance Theatre’ or ‘Abhinaya Salai’ now based at the University.

Sitakumari’s background is as a Bharatanatyam dancer, the oldest style of Indian classical dance in which she trained since the age of 5. Over several years, working with Nick Sidle as the writer/photographer, she developed a new style of dance, contemporary but drawing on the original dance form in which she was trained. Using its strengths as a powerful storytelling medium, this has become the ideal complementary expressive artistic form to the photographs in the exhibition. All the dance pieces take their inspiration from either a photograph or a passage in The Heartstone Odyssey.

Dance-drama and Storytelling Workshops

The dancers of ‘Moving Lives Dance Theatre’ have become an important new resource for Heartstone. As well as performing alongside Sitakumari, they also deliver dance-drama workshops for children and young people across the country.