photos: Caitlyn Gianniny

ANIKAI Dance premieres a new dance-theater duet at the Times Square International Theater Festival at the Roy Arias Studios. Combining text in English, Hindi and American Sign Language, and movement vocabulary from Capoeira, Kalaripayattu, Bharat Natyam, West African, and a wide range of Contemporary dance forms, The Knocking Within draws on Shakespeare's Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Titus Andronicus to create a portrait of two lovers and the nightmares that plague them and unveil their insecurities, their fears and the violence that lies just beneath the surface. The Knocking Within is inspired by research into the science and anthropology of dreams and sleep.

The Knocking Within is performed by Wendy Jehlen and Pradhuman Nayak, with lights by Holly Ko.

The script for the play draws on some of the most famous scenes from each of these plays – encounters between Macbeth and the witches, and between Hamlet and the ghost of his father; Lady Macbeth’s hand-washing scene and Macbeth’s dagger scene; Ophelia’s song, Hamlet’s soliloquy; the murder of Desdemona.  The play's two characters mix and re-combine lines from all of these scenes and characters as they are wrenched through their nightmare together. 

The scenes do not play out in a linear manner, but rather are woven into each other, so that the effect is of the disorientation of the subconscious mind, dreaming. The play will employ Jehlen’s emotionally-charged, evocative choreography, both with and without text, to heighten this effect. 

The Knocking within will premiere at the Times Square International Theater Festival in January 2012.

TICKETS

Tues Jan 17 6pm
Fri Jan 20 8:30pm
Sun Jan 22 3pm
Roy Arias Studios
Theater IV
Times Square
NYC