Her winning piece, QUICK!, has four men in city clothes perform a frenetic, testosterone-infused bharatanatyam, conveying the hurly-burly of modern commerce with an ancient Indian dance form.

The Guardian's dance critic, Judith Mackrell praised the way Rajarani links the "speed and glitter of the Indian dance to the frenetic pace of modern life. Yet by splicing the dancing with laddish grooming rituals and an uneasy joshing, she also evokes something touching and vulnerable about the men themselves."

The piece was chosen from a pool of original 15-minute works specially composed by 20 choreographers for the competition. The panel of judges, which featured figures from across the arts including performance artist Robyn Archer, musician and producer Brian Eno and artist Chris Ofili, said, "This work of unstoppable energy places bharatanatyam firmly in the world of London business. A dance work with something new to say about how the world is today, it is a clear winner of the Place prize 2006."

Rajarani, 36, is one of the UK's most accomplished bharatanatyam artists and combines touring with her company Srishti with teaching classical Indian dance in southern England. She received her prize from the 2004 winner, Rafael Bonachela, who has gone on to work with the Rambert Dance Company and on Kylie's 2005 Showgirl tour.

The 36-year-old is one of the UK's most accomplished artists in Bharatanatyam, a classical South Asian dance.

Her 15-minute piece Quick! featured four male dancers and four musicians dressed in business suits to "convey the hurly-burly of modern commerce".

The judging panel, which included musician Brian Eno, described her work as having "unstoppable energy". 

The piece placed Bharatanatyam "firmly in the world of London business", they added.

"A dance work with something new to say about how the world is today, it is a clear winner of The Place Prize 2006."

Ms Rajarani beat four other finalists - Freddie Opoku Addaie, Jonathan Lunn, Luca Silvestrini and Lucy Suggate - to the £25,000 cheque.

The Place Prize is the biggest award in UK contemporary dance, and runs every two years.

Twenty UK-based choreographers are commissioned to create dance works to be performed at The Place in London.

Each commissioned artist receives £5,000, along with the studio time they need to compose their pieces.

In 2004, the inaugural award went to Rafael Bonachela, the choreographer of Kylie Minogue's Fever tour.

By Vivien Schweitzer
04 Oct 2006 

PLAYBILL

London-based Indian classical dancer Nina Rajarani has won the 2006 Place Prize, and £25,000, for her work QUICK!

The Place Prize is a prestigious biennial choreography competition; the 2006 finals took place in London on September 30 at The Place, a major British center for contemporary dance. Twenty UK-based choreographers were commissioned to create 15-minute dance works, from which five finalists were selected by a a panel of judges chosen from across the arts, including musician Brian Eno.

In Rajarani’s piece, four male dancers and four musicians in business dress convey the hustle and bustle of modern life in London using the classical Indian dance form bharata natyam.

Commenting on Rajarani's work, the judges said, "This work of unstoppable energy places bharata natyam firmly in the world of London business. A dance work with something new to say about how the world is today, it is a clear winner of The Place Prize 2006.”

Judith Mackrell, dance critic of London's The Guardian, which compares The Place Prize to the Turner Prize (the British prize for contemporary art) writes that Rajarani links the "speed and glitter of the Indian dance to the frenetic pace of modern life. Yet by splicing the dancing with laddish grooming rituals and an uneasy joshing, she also evokes something touching and vulnerable about the men themselves."

Rajarani, 36, is one of the UK's best bharata natyam dancers, according to The Guardian, and combines touring with her company Srishti with teaching classical Indian dance in southern England.

The judging panel for The Place Prize 2006 was chaired by John Ashford, theatre director of The Place, and also included performance artist and festival director Robyn Archer; dance dramaturg and producer Guy Cools; Brian Eno; independent arts producer Rose Fenton; and artist Chris Ofili.

The Place Prize

Contemporary dance needs all the help it can get, which is why dancers and choreographers have cause to be grateful to Bloomberg for its generous sponsorship of the Place Prize for Dance. Currently on show are the five finalists chosen from the 20 commissioned to compete. The winner, to be announced on Saturday, receives £25,000. He or she will be chosen by a team of judges including artist Chris Ofili and musician Brian Eno. But every night before then the audience gets to choose its favourite, who walks away with £1,000.

There’s no doubt in my mind who deserves the big prize. Nina Rajarani, who runs her own company Srishti, is competing with Quick!, a terrific piece for four men in shirts and ties who strut about like peacocks in the workplace. Written in the highly rhythmic style of bharata natyam (and abetted by four onstage musicians), its stamping percussive energies and mimetic animation are filled with frantic testosterone vanity and the high-powered stress of the modern businessman. Rajarani’s take on classical Indian dance is invigorating.

The veteran Jonathan Lunn contributes Self Assembly, a duet that benefits from Peter Mumford’s gorgeous lighting and Anthony Minghella’s hilarious spoken text, which takes wry aim at those impenetrable self-assembly manuals. Tam Ward and Carly Best dance a limber, distressed duet in which their inability to self assemble their relationship is as frustrating as flatpack furniture.

How Lucy Suggate’s Postcard made it into the finals is beyond me. Banal doesn’t begin to describe her ménage à trois for one woman and two men, one able-bodied, the other without legs. All manner of couplings are explored on a variety of surfaces, including a wheelchair and a pile of white fun-fur, while film of their day out at the seaside tries to make a point about finding the extraordinary within the ordinary. Issues of disability are pertinent to such a physical art form, but Suggate’s trite choreography doesn’t begin to explore them.

Frederick Opoku Addaie’s Silence Speaks Volumes didn’t speak to me, although I recognise a young talent trying to make its mark. The piece is danced on a dark stage where three women and two men are co-opted by a multitude of angers fuelled by Sarah Shanson’s churning minimalist score. Sometimes movement can convey what words cannot, but here it’s hard to identify with emotion when you don’t know where it’s coming from.

Luca Silvestrini’s B for Body is a caustic and comic satire on our obsession with body image. Silvestrini (who runs Protein Dance) produces an entertaining piece of sado-masochism, with two men putting Sally Marie through the torture of gym workouts, massage hell and nightmare plastic surgery in her quest for physical perfection. With its bruising choreography, it’s the dance equivalent of gothic horror and Marie, manhandled beyond endurance, makes a wonderful victim.

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