Our partnership has a beautiful balance of East and West: Peeya Rai Choudhuri

Peeya Rai Choudhuri, who became a household name as the bindaas Kiran with the TV show Hip Hip Hurray and gained acclaim for her role as Lakhi in Gurinder Chadda’s Bride & Prejudice, had taken a break from the limelight as her mother had been unwell, only to return as the co-founder of a dance company. The actress, along with her husband Tino Sanchez, formed Omaggio Performing Company in 2013 in Goa and since then, they have done a number of corporate shows around the country. Their artistic production, Jalika, a story told through dance, mime, theatre and aerial movements, will be performed in Mumbai on February 16 and 17. “After Mumbai, we will perform in Delhi, Pune and Bengaluru,” Peeya, who has scripted the play and curated it along with her husband, informs us. The actress turned choreographer tells us more...

Since when have you been interested in dance? 

I started learning Bharatanatyam at the age of six and learnt it till I was 15 years old. In my late ’20s, I received a full scholarship in Contemporary dance from Ivan Baretto, who had been a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet at his school in Madrid. I completed an intensive dance program in Ballet, modern, contemporary, tap dance and music.

Tell us a bit about what you have been upto since we last saw you in The Bong Connection.

I devoted almost two-and-a-half years to my mum living her last few years as comfortably as possible and then I found dance back in my life and lived in Europe, pursuing my dance studies. I met my husband, Tino, there and then moved back to India late 2012.

When did you form the company? 

Omaggio Performing Company was founded in 2013 in Goa. My husband Tino has a very active choreographing career in Europe and UK but this has been his dream project — an international dance company consisting of young Indian artistes at par with the world. A unique project which has been self-funded for the artistic development of young Indian artistes who were specially chosen and given scholarships and personal attention to create artistes who are now multiskilled in contemporary dance, aerial acrobatics and theatre. We are now ready with our production, Jalika, for which he had to first train all the artistes in various art forms in a residency in Goa for the last five years.

You have scripted and curated the dance. Describe the process. 

The ideation, creation and choreography of Jalika is Tino’s work entirely. I have written the script which comes into focus at strategic points of the performance. The script reinforces the dance narrative and helps in forming a structure for the audience to follow. Jalika has been in rehearsals since mid 2017. All the music has been composed by three musicians from Europe and UK.

The word Jalika is a Sanskrit term meaning a veil or a web and it symbolises the very essence of this piece. The story takes us on a journey within the mind of the protagonist who finds herself in a conflict while struggling between identity and image and the meaning of these two words in society at present. Her borderline bipolar approach creates a graph from emptiness to a deep sense of overwhelming fulfillment through the production.

Tell us about the partnership with Tino?

My husband has years of international projects behind him and is definitely the more disciplined of us two. However, creativity is subjective and I think we are both very creative and always pushing the other to go beyond. We find constant inspiration from the life we lead in Goa with our incredible artistes. Our partnership has a beautiful balance of East and West, intuition and passion and we both are highly dedicated and driven.

Are you still inclined towards acting, in movies, TV, stage or web series?

I recently hosted a travel show on NatGeo, which was fun and did not require too much of my time. It was a quick shoot and I loved it! So I am definitely open to more work of this type.