THE FOUR HORSEMEN

Continuing its celebration of 30 years of exemplary service to Houston arts, Samskriti presents “The Four Horsemen”, by Jiva Performing Arts dance company. This unique production is an innovative Indian Classical dance production, exploring symbolism from the story of the Apocalypse through Indian classical dance, music and Sanskrit poetry. The work centers around four vignettes of life and death through four female protagonists who represent universal human experience. The stories are touchingly timely, given the extremes that we are faced with daily. The work begs to question whether the apocalypse is merely a finite point in time, or an endless cycle of struggle and hope. Are we not subject to these challenges daily, and as humans, do we have the faculty to overcome these? The new work challenges the notion of Indian classical dance content and technique and moves beyond the traditional to incorporate a cross-cultural analysis of female experience.

“The Four Horsemen” has been lauded by critics and audiences, and has been shown at Yale University, The Drive East Festival in NYC, Nitya Nritya Festival in Utah and the Natya Festival in St. Louis. Excerpts have been presented in Canada, France and India.This program has been funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, Texas Commission on the Arts, Dance Source Houston’s Groundwork Grant program, and a corporate grant from Enbridge Fueling Futures.