Intersections: The Yellow Line Project Film Screenings
By Jyoti Dhar
In November 2011 five pairs of contemporary dancers and filmmakers came together for a week in New Delhi to take part in an interdisciplinary residency called the Yellow Line Project (YLP). Named after the city’s first ever metro line, the YLP looked to investigate potential sites of interaction between dance, film and the city by workshopping, developing and filming multiple site-specific performances. Between October 19 and 28, the resultant five short collaborative films were screened outdoors in and around New Delhi, in Bengali market, Connaught Place, Khan Market, Nehru Place, Hauz Khas Village, Greater Kailash II market and Alaknanda market.
Swiss filmmaker Frederic Lombard and Indian choreographer Surjit Nongmeikapam took to a leafy quad near Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station to create Underline, whereas photographer and filmmaker Desmond Roberts and dancer Rajyashree Ramamurthi went exploring the built-up, concrete jungle of Nehru Place in In Shadows and Silence. Bangalore-based filmmaker Yashaswini R and Chennai-based dancer Preethi Athreya collaborated in Site Mapping, filmed in a partly-constructed hospital building in Hauz Khas Village. Duo Parimal Phadke and Dhanya Pilo also filmed their collaboration, Dudro, in Hauz Khas Village in an abandoned rickshaw yard. Finally, Attakalari dancer and choreographer Rakesh MPS and multimedia artist Asim Waqif explore, in their work Tarq, the confines of a dilapidated room, overlooking a yellow line metro station.