Fallen Sindhur, September 17, 2005, Barnevelder

I thoroughly enjoyed this performance by Urban Indian Beat, even though I was so tired I could barely sit up in my chair. Sindhur, as explained to me by an Indian-American friend, is the red powder that married women wear in their hair. The company strives to combine classical Indian dancing with Western forms of dance (ballet, jazz, modern). This piece had themes of the struggles of Indian women to forge a unique identity, or at least I think it did, as I was unable to understand the spoken poetry. I can only guess was in Hindi or Bengali; it would have been nice, and furthered the company's mission of bringing Indian culture to the Houston community, to have had translations in the program.

The dancers had various strengths, with some strongest in the Western styles and some in the Indian styles, but most of them did a good job with both. The choreography kept my interest, but the first half lacked compelling movement in the short partnered sections between men and women. Fortunately, the second half did not suffer this shortcoming, and there were some nice song-length duets. For me, the most notable dancing took place at the end of the show in the form of a breathtaking solo by one of the women, whose name I unfortunately do not know. Like the recent FrenetiCore performance of Deviations, this show combined music, poetry, and projected images. Some nice pictures can be seen on the Spacetaker website. Unlike the FrenetiCore style, the projections were abstract images that served more as an extension of the lighting design than a separate element.