NAYIKA A DANCING GIRL Comes to Belvoir This Month

Belvoir will present the world premiere of Nayika (A Dancing Girl), a breathtaking solo performance melding storytelling, live music and Bharatanatyam dance, made for the unique talents of Helpmann Award-winner Vaishnavi Suryaprakash (Counting and Cracking) on from 30 April to 19 May 2024. 

Co-created and co-directed by Nithya Nagarajan (Assistant Director of Jungle and the Sea) and Liv Satchell (The Grief Trilogy) this coming-of-age story of love and resistance is filled with joy, moments of melancholy and a whole lot of heart.  

A chance remark by an old friend in Sydney takes a woman back to her teenage years: living alone, by the sea in Chennai. She’s preparing for her debut dance recital, her Arangetram. She’s falling in love too! But young love unravels, and the memories flooding back take on a power of their own…

This is a play about the profound ways indelible trauma shapes you, and the hope and defiance of taking back control.

“Vaishnavi is another treasure of the Belvoir stage, and this piece will enhance her reputation as a performer of skill and nuance, I’m sure. It’s astonishing how this work can be simultaneously rhapsodic and confronting. The dance is hypnotic, the music is spine-tingling, and the story is haunting and profound,” said Belvoir Artistic Director Eamon Flack.

Sound Designer and Composer Marco Cher-Gibard (Malthouse Theatre’s K-BOX) and renowned Indian-Australian Violinist Bhairavi Raman will accompany Vaishnavi on stage as her exceptional talent as both a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and actor captivates audiences. 

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