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 The Crossover - Vinu Vasudevan e-mail: vinuvasu73@gmail.com June 22, 2024 Dr Methil Devika, a versatile dancer turned academician has never tried to walk on the ordinary path which a dancer usually takes. Her views are always different in terms of theme and techniques. For the last several years, Devika is constantly working on a variety of subjects for her dance productions. In her latest one, The Crossover, a short dance documentary based on communicating 'Mudra' language for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) community, Devika beautifully expressed the story of Lord Krishna's birth through Indian Sign Language. The film was screened on June 15 at JTPAC, Tripunithura.  Methil Devika performing in the film Produced and directed by Methil Devika, the 20 minutes long documentary named 'The Crossover - A dance for the DHH Community' began with the dancer herself narrating the story of Krishna's birth through mudras for the hearing impaired seated in the audience. In that segment, Devika elaborated the story in her own voice over. After finishing this part, the dancer started her dance performance of the same story using typical Indian classical dance mudras. This made the audience really enthusiastic and they started watching it keenly, giving a huge applause in the end. In the third and final part, she stood in front of them and clearly demonstrated the small differences in delivering the two styles of mudras. This is probably the first one among the category of dance documentaries made exclusively for the hearing impaired community by a dancer. Devika's attempts to explore new landmarks both in dance and visual production should be appreciated. The first and foremost thing in this documentary is that of the content treatment through visuals and the script for the voice over. Devika had admitted that the motivation behind this dance video production is an incident that happened to her during the SPICMACAY tour years ago where she became silent in front of a hearing impaired audience. She was unable to deliver the normal dance mudras in front of them. That made her think about the possibilities of using Indian Sign Language for creating a new dance production for these people. Her clear pronunciation of each and every aspect of the normal dance mudra styles and how a simple word can be created through this really motivated the audience who attended to watch the birth of Krishna through two different styles.  Methil Devika interacting with the audience From the beginning itself the perfect sync of video and audio impressed the audience. The screen presence of Devika was another attractive factor of the documentary. An excellent work of cinematography by two young camera persons Rajesh Kadamba and Vipin Chandran was another highlight of this dance video. Though there is only one location visible in the video, the courtyard of a house, that itself gives ample opportunities for camera persons to give an extraordinary feeling for the subject, especially some shots where Devika is dancing and interacting with the audience. While communicating with them, some of the reactions they expressed were beautifully captured. Another notable aspect was the style of production which Devika has followed. A simple technique of visualizing the activities in a natural way and maintaining the rawness of it, including some laughs and gestures of the dancer and audience. The lighting effects is another highlight of the video. Methil Devika, with her experimental and thinking mind has made a valuable contribution to the world of both dance and society. This video will definitely 'Cross over' all the boundaries of dance and visual parameters in the coming future.  Vinu Vasudevan is a freelance journalist, art critic and a documentary maker. He has worked in a number of television channels between 1996 to 2013. Presently he is working as the Faculty of Journalism in Kerala Kalamandalam Deemed University for Art and Culture for their Post Graduate programs. He is also a regular writer in 'The Hindu', 'The India Art Review' and leading Malayalam publications. |
