Skin, sweat, hair, water, soul—this exquisite production will move Auckland audiences. After a sell-out season and rave reviews in Melbourne as well as a line-up of local and international festival appearances, Karma Dance Australia brings to Auckland a bold and provocative new work that pokes at the edges of tradition and kicks up the ashes of history.

Bravely launching off the foundations of a 3,000-year-old Indian dance tradition, Raina and Govind journey with their audience to a new world where they encounter a striking new dance aesthetic and are caused to ask, “What really is tradition?”

“As children of the diaspora, we are recipients of a handed-down artistic tradition,” Raina observes. “We want to peel away the layers that history has added to discover what is really underneath.”

“When you challenge tradition, you don’t just get closer to its soul, you also stumble across entirely new ways of doing things—and that is what makes this work both traditional and modern at once,” says Govind.

Live dance, music and a dynamic vocal landscape delivered by the dancers themselves (in accordance with an extinct tradition known as vaachika abhinaya), will combine to present a rare and intimate exposition of the heart and soul of classical Indian dance—juxtaposed against the striking visual possibilities that emerge from modern experimentation.

In Plain Sanskrit opens at Q Theatre with performances on April 8 and 9 at 7 p.m. Tickets can be bought online at qtheatre.co.nz/plain-sanskrit and are priced at $30 for earlybird, $35 for adults, $25 for children and concession tickets are priced at $28.