barkha patel leaves audiences breathless

Dancer barkha patel performed ​“ramit aave: her playful arrival" at Union College on Friday night.

The path barkha patel treads is one of mystery in “ramit aave: her playful arrival.” As seen on Friday night at Union College, the dancer strides along a road to delve into the feminine side of sensuality, dying and ultimately into a territory of enlightenment.
 
She’s an intrepid explorer, using her skills in kathak dance and the hypnotic music of sarangi, tabla and voice, to lead her audience into an unseen world. And then she leaves the viewer there, slightly rattled and breathless.
 
The program notes for “ramit aave” (translated from Hindi as “she comes dancing”), tell the audience that patel is tapping into the forces of the Goddess Kali to release female desire buried for generations. Kali oversees time, doomsday, death, disorder, sexuality and violence. And in her work, patel dies and then rises as an erotic figure. Then she returns from on high as a spiritual being, one disillusioned by romance, but also unaffected by it.
 
The stage is set up with vocalist Shweta Pandya, tabla player Vivek Pandya and sarangi performer Rohan Misra on a low platform on which they sit. patel enters upstage on a well-worn pathway painted with red footprints. Carrying a vessel atop her head, she walks slowly in silence. Only the bells at her ankles can be heard gently tingling.
 
She pours from her vessel folded papers and crushed red flower petals. And then she dances, her long flared skirt billowing to the intriguing music.
 
So much of traditional Indian dance rests on storytelling. And it is one of the few dance forms in which the face and gestures tell its tale. In the first section, patel appears to be building something up that she strains to keep. She is unsuccessful in her effort and she crumples to the floor.
 
In the next section, a trio of mirrors reveals a woman preening, gently caressing her face and admiring her reflection. Then she steps out, beautifully confident with a flirtatious look in her eye. But then she is disappointed by a rebuff and finishes by stroking a fragile heart.
 
After an amazing musical interlude in which Vivek Pandya astonished with his fleet and flexible fingers and hands gliding over the tabla, patel returns from above. She walks through the audience offering roses she would then refuse to bear and instead stripped the flowers of their petals that she crushed as she went.
 
The magic was broken by technical difficulties as the lights went out on patel before they were supposed to. She called up to the booth, to turn them back on. “I’m not done,” she called.

But her request was unheeded. The audience accommodated her with cell phone flashlights and she completed her dance stomping in anger and then whirling, with her loose hair flying, as if finally attaining her higher calling.