Doorstep Duets interview for Strange Tourist
My latest feature for Strange Tourist is an interview with choreographer Anjali Mehra. We spoke about Doorstep Duets, a project from Matthew Bourne’s dance company New Adventures. Now in its fourth year, it brings world class dance to communities that may not otherwise have access to it.
This month, the company is touring Mehra’s short piece Hum around various locations in the South East, including Margate and Ramsgate, where it will be performed in parks, town squares and at Margie’s Turner Contemporary gallery.
“This project is very much about community and connection and joy and wonder,” Mehra explains. “I'm really aware that it's live dance that people might not have seen before, so I needed to create a story that people can understand and connect with easily.”
She often takes inspiration from nature, she says, and while researching ideas for this show, came across information on hummingbirds.
“The hummingbird was really interesting, because it's this very tiny, tiny bird on the planet, but it drops little nectars in different plants and it helps the rainforest,” she says. “I thought it was quite a nice metaphor for people doing small acts of kindness towards each other and how that possibly then grows and connects to people.”
The “ripple effect” of one act of kindness prompting the recipient to then go on to do something for something else then became “the basis of the piece.”