Julia Brookfield

[Dance] Floors and [Aqua] Fissures proposes an architecture for the performance of the Indian classical dance, Bharatanatyam, by taking a mantle from the narrative gestures of Hand and Heel which are used to communicate a Bharatanatyam performance. As part of the translation of gesture, architectural interventions become a repository for the passing of knowledge of the Bharatanatyam language.

The 2016 Sabarmati Riverfront project laid 11.25 km of concrete bulwark and converted Ahmedabad’s once meandering river edge into automotive infrastructure. As part of the imprint of the project, the stage of The Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, a national sanctuary for the practice of Bharatanatyam, was severed from the river. In response, this thetic enquiry roots from the green marble dance floor of Darpana, fissuring and hanging architecture which reconnect to the Sabarmati.

The gestures of Heel and Hand become a framework for invention. The Heel, as that of the ground, and the Hand, as that of the sky, operate across scales and inform the proportionality of both spaces and systems. Using local Gujarati material systems of timber and masonry the wondrous narrative of Bharatanatyam, brings together a range of forces to the Sabarmati riverfront, in a series of suspended stages.