In May 2003 a group of scientists, educators, artists and journalist set sail aboard the ship ‘Noorderlicht’, together with its crew. From Tromsø they travel to Svalbard via Bear Island. On board is Subathra Subramaniam, a scientist, a dancer, an educator. There, above the polar circle, she greets the melting icecaps with movements based on Bharata Natyam, a traditional Indian dance. This photo series was shot on that trip and tells the story of an unconventional mix of disciplines with great impact.
The Shiver, the choreography inspired by this trip, was the first project Suba made as a storyteller with all her roles combined: a dancer, a scientist and an educator. “The cold in Svalbard was such a strong experience, not just physical but also emotional. The idea of feeling this shiver in such a beautiful landscape and knowing that this feeling is temporary, that the cold will diminish and vanish within fifty or a hundred years. That’s perfect material for a choreography. A story that you can tell with your whole body.”
Since then, Suba travels around the world with a sequence of movements, a short choreography or ritual, based on the movements from Bharata Natyam. “Everywhere I go – from Svalbard to Greenland and the UK to Canada – and every time I meet people in a landscape new to me, I make us do this together. This little, almost ritualistic, dance. It’s a way of greeting the space. A greeting to the land and the people you are with. For me, that movement is a way of connecting cultures, connecting people’s stories. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what climate change means to you, or what it might be doing to your homeland, we can all show our respect for the land that we’re standing on and moving through.”
So often we act out of habit. Whether it’s consuming products the fastest way, throwing away our garbage or performing our jobs. For Suba dance is a way to get aware of these habits and re-evaluate them. “My work is science based, and I make sure that I don’t just take from scientists but also give them something in return. What I can give is the lens of a choreographer. I can embody things that otherwise stay unnoticed. For example, I made a piece about surgeries, and the nurses came back to me and said: I never realized how meditative my work is. It is already a choreography. And indeed, it is. I see our daily lives as a continuum of movements and we create choreographies with everyday objects: how you scrub your hands with soap, how you hold a knife, take a breath.
The same shift in thinking about our habits she tries to give to her audience. With projects like ‘Plastic Drastic Fantastic’ she not just educates kids about the dangers of plastic pollution but shifts the images of garbage into esthetics. How can these throw away objects become useful or pretty? She makes a shift also in those who speak and are heard: “the voices of the people who are most affected by climate change are never heard. Landscapes of indigenous people are destroyed to make the green transition in Europe possible. These people have so much knowledge not just about their landscape but also about sustainability in general and yet they are out of these discussions. A lot of the work with Akademi I do lately, is centered around this question: how do we center the discussions about climate change more around indigenous voices? For me, dance is about expression and starting conversations. I bring a dance from South Asia to the West and of course it’s a different form because I made it my own, but for me it’s a conversation starter and a way to let these stories travel and connect with landscapes and people all over the world.