16/11/08 - Ganesha's Story

Leeds - LA Fitness

Present:
Holly Cassidy
Heather Jackson
Bernice McBride
Erica Wilson

Before rehearsal, Zoobin met with us to discuss the show in Tilburg.
For this we will be working to produce a piece on the theme on the Ganesha mythology. As we were largely unfamiliar with the story, Zoobin explained the outline to us:

Ganesha is the son of Parvati and Shiva. but was created only by Parvati.
Shiva is the god of dance, the creator and the destroyer. Parvati is the earth mother.
Shiva was away from home, hunting in the forest with his ganas and Parvati was alone in the house. She wanted to take a bath but no one was around to guard her door. To solve the problem Parvati took some earth and fashioned it into a man and breathed life into it. Thus Ganesha was created. Parvati set Ganesha to guard her door and went for her bath.
While Ganesha was guarding the door, Shiva returned and demanded access. Not recognising Shiva as Parvati's husband, and obedient to his mother's wishes, Ganesha refused. Shiva grew angry and threatened Ganesha, but still Ganesha would not leave his post or allow Shiva inside. Shiva fought with Ganesha and cut off his head.
When Parvati discovered this she was enraged and told Shiva that unless he brought her son back she would bring about the dissolution of the worlds. Shiva and his ganas went in search of a replacement head for Ganesha. The first living creature they came across was an elephant so they killed it and took the head for Ganesha.

Zoobin asked all of us to work separately and think of one or more aspects of the story to create a short piece of dance.

Notes:
Ganesha/ obedience/ guarding/ thresholds
Linear movements. Prohibitive gestures (flat mudhras?)
Horizontal motion parallel with stage front denoting threshold.

All four of us presented our individual pieces to Zoobin who commented and suggested changes. He then took elements of all four pieces and merged them together.
Zoobin recorded the full dance (around 2 minutes) so we could learn the movements.

Action: Distribute video via email/ phone message to Holly, Heather, Erica.