Aruna Kailey/Sohan Kailey/Rang-Zeb Rango Hussain "The Journey From Dark to Light"

Dance Artist: Aruna Kailey
Videographer and photography: Rang-Zeb Rango Hussain

Song: Rasiyafrom the movie Kurbaan

Sohan Kailey

Song Translation:
O my beloved/ O sweet one! (O the one full of nectar!)
My crazy love for You is not finding peace/is restless
Come my love, embrace me now
My crazy love for You is not finding peace
Come my love, colour me now
Embrace me now
One body, one life, may we have one world for ourselves
May our souls embrace each other in such a way that our beliefs/consciences become one

The night is as dark as tresses (dense hair)
On the lips, the words are shivering
My dark coloured breaths are requesting something
Come and colour my white coloured (yet colourless) love
My crazy love for You is not finding peace
Come my love, embrace me now
My crazy love for You is not finding peace
Come my love, colour me now
Embrace me now

The above collaborative project between Aruna Kailey (Dancer), Sohan Kailey (Dancer) and Rang-Zeb Rango Hussain (Photographer/Video Artist/Writer) deals with themes such as spiritual rebirth, regeneration and positivity, in reaction to contemporary experiences of accelerated change, financial uncertainty, multiculturalism/globalisation and spiritual experience.  Rango's commitment to positivity in anxious times is both refreshing and hopeful and points, in my view, to a form of humanism that embraces multiculturalism, agnosticism and secular experience. In recent times when we have experienced the New Zealand terror attacks, the shootings in the Netherlands and many other atrocities across the world, Rango's eclectic and peaceful vision seems particularly pertinent. 

Aruna's dancing, fusing Bollywood and Belly dance, acts as a potent metaphor for spiritual "renaissance", societal rebirth and regeneration.  Intrinsic to Aruna's approach are powerful, cogent gestures together with a fluid, elegant subtlety of expression that perfectly exemplifies the visual narrative of the piece.  This flowing lyricism, together with Rango's words/imagery and the powerful, evocative music used in the videos expresses a potent spiritual aesthetic that invites interpretations of a peaceful holism and creativity.

From a UK perspective, the collaboration is celebratory, as it evokes multicultural experience. It is also essentially surreal, in the sense that a large British city is used as a backdrop for the photography and video-art that exhibits Asian forms of dance. This displacement offers a learning experience for all cultures and therefore, as aforementioned, encourages healing, co-operation and societal harmony.  Whereas terrorism has become a global threat, the UK has experienced over a decade of crippling austerity-measures (denied by the Government) and a dramatic rise in knife crime, committed mainly by youths and young adults.  Therefore, the importance of the narrative and conceptual content of this artistic project, cannot be underestimated.

Rango's video featuring Aruna's dance improvisation that inspired me to write this review can be viewed on the following link;
Video on Facebook.
The lyrics to the song, translated into English can be read above.

Simon. 
23/03/2019