D's Art Takes : ART * INSPIRATION * LIFE

As most people jump to join their gyms and start working on machines and the floor mats, and yes lets not forget all the weight lifting and jumping rope that is involved in the endeavour to shed the holiday pounds – I’m siting at my most loved and worn table, sketching, drawing, and playing with colour. Exploring forms and figures, light and shadows, all to the end of illuminating the artist within, her voice, her choices, that create DsArtWorks

As I complete today’s exploration, here is an older one, done with watercolours, inks and forgotten cities – I thought it would be perfect as the first share, as it was not about perfection and beauty, but ideas and freedom, and most importantly it was about giving the self the permission to make mistakes, and seeing the forms.

“The Flame of the City is burning bright,

And the skyline is illuminated by the drops of love and creation.

The Dance of the flame ignites,

Nurturing the cities, circles and squares.

Allowing all the expansion, with not even the slightest coercion,

Inviting the networks and the galaxies, go beyond, go beyond, go beyond!

Go Beyond, this Flaming City.”

                                                                                 - Written by Divvya Nirula,2014

As the moon rises on the last day of 2014, I sat at my desk with charcoal in hand and began to draw a form that the paper was hiding and the graphite was hunting. In the end – this tree emerged, in solace and strength, protected and lit by the moon.

 The leaves are the gifts nurtured and created, the Moon the guiding light, the branches and trunk the support I found in new spaces, and the blank…

Gabriele Viertel shoots underwater.

   I came across this female, german photographer based out of the Netherlands in 2012, in an issue of Vogue Italia. For me the photographs were extremely painterly, it is only upon reading about the artist and her technique that I learned that Gabriele Viertel shoots underwater. She likes her subjects to be layered in fabric, thus playing on the interaction of light, fabric, water and the…

  Ballet, fantasy, children’s tale, romance and hope – all this and more summarises what The Nutcracker has come to mean to audiences all over the globe, who see the viewing of this Ballet as a Christmas tradition.

 Written in 1810 by E.T.A. Hoffman, a German Romantic author, composer, artist, and writer of fantasy and fiction. Hoffman craved to disturb the trends of the time that were…

Psychotic Dance : Black Swan

This is a post I have wanted to write for some time now. It has been lodged in my soul, squatting on a piece of real-estate.

What is it about?

It is as much about the potential for Psychoses embedded within Dancers, as it is about the casting of actor Natalie Portman in the Black Swan! It is a bit late to be venting, or rather putting a case across, but what better a forum than 45 Days of Dance…

      Yesterday I left you with a slight teaser of TOROBAKA and a glimpse into the magical synergy that dancers Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem exhibited in “Sacred Monsters”. Today as I woke up, this exploration into the the-indefatigable-akram-khan seemed incomplete, and hence I thought I would present to you little snippets of his genius, his performance, and his passion for the…

   For the Dancer, the body is integral, the mind the controller and the soul is the fuel that drives her expression, and the eyes and face where the expression is manifested, guiding the body into motion. So in this journey of discovering the Dancer’s Body over the last few days from feet, to torso, to head, I find myself unable to end this exploration for the 45 Days of Dance Stories…

   Martha Graham has been for many dancers a source of great strength, inspiration and guidance. Her work, writings, performances, choreographies, and dance style have been a beacon of light for me. So today rather than extoll the virtues of this extraordinary individual, let me present o you her 3 part narration titled “A Dancer’s Life” and allow you to go on that journey of…

Getting back to our upward trajectory of exploring the dancers body, we left off at Hands – the Power of Two, and now we are back with the Head as part of the 45 Days of Dance Storiesblogging project. As a classical dancer, especially a Bharatnatyam Dancer, when I think of the head and its uses, I immediately think of Greeva Bheda or Sheero Bheda. The anthology of head movements delineated…