Flamenco and Kalari come together in ‘Bhoomiputri’, a dance drama that explores the man-woman relationship

Flamenco and Kalari fuse in ‘Bhoomiputri’, a dance drama exploring man-woman relationship

Inspired by poetry, dance and drama, Bhoomiputri, a dance drama, conceptualised by art curator Latha Kurien Rajeev, is the story of man-woman and the many stages of their relationship.

A project that began in 2016, Bhoomiputri is a creative fusion of several artistic minds that were synergised and brought together on one platform by Latha.

She explains that author-actor Meera Nair’s poems sowed the seeds of the collaboration. “I selected a few poems from her anthology, Grey: Born When Black Invaded White, and requested playwright and theatreperson E Rajarajeswari to turn it into a script for a play. Raji came up with an interesting script that fired my imagination,” recounts Latha.

Raji chose some verses in the collection and turned those into the voices of a man and a woman. These then became a journey into a man-woman relationship.

When Latha sent the script to flamenco dancer Bettina Castano, she was also enchanted by the theme of the script and came on board without any hesitation. 

However, the idea took time taking shape as the pandemic struck. Latha went back to it a couple of months ago in 2024 and “within five days, we were able to come up with the dance-drama,” she says.

“A father’s love is unconditional and all encompassing. Naturally, many women expect that unconditional love and empathy from their partner as well. But that is when she realises the difference,” says Latha and adds, “Many men try to change their partner to be the kind of woman they want. Many women give in but at a certain point there might be a pushback and that is when the conflict begins if he does not understand his partner. Our dance-drama explores the nuances of such a relationship.”