Ramu said the plan was built around winning the black queen, even though white had the first move advantage.
Arun Janardhanan
The Tamil Nadu government did a great job showcasing the state’s Dravidian heritage at the opening ceremony of the 44th Chess Olympiad on Thursday. Chief Minister M.K.Stalin uploaded a video of the ‘chess dance’ of the ‘black queen’ winning over the whites on the internet. There is implicit politics in it as much as sport.
The 3.48-minute dance video titled Check Made was conceived by Pudukottai District Collector Kavita Ramu, a trained dancer.
Speaking to The Sunday Express, Ramu, who designed and choreographed the dance, said, “For me, the project is not only about colour, gender and power, but also a tribute to the sport that made Chennai home to the country.”
While the DMK regime has rolled out the red carpet for the festival, I wanted it to be vibrant and colourful, with elements of chess dance, classical, folk and martial arts,” said Ramu.
While she auditioned in Pudukottai, the dance was shot in Chennai. As I could not travel to Chennai due to work, director Vijay Raj sent me the video clips and photographs of the shoot. Appreciating her meticulous dedication to the project, the Collector said she wanted to ensure that the ‘dance’ was strictly united in chess moves.
One of the critical elements was getting the music right. Narendra Kumar Lakshmipathi composed the music for it.
Ramu said the plan was built around winning the black queen, even though white had the first move advantage.
The black queen in the dance is Priyadarshini Rajendran, a Bharatanatyam dancer from Pudukottai who works in the IT sector in Bangalore and plays chess. Priyadarshini says with a laugh that she has always preferred black: “Some of us think black has a better chance, perhaps because of a counterintuition.”
What makes the final video even better is that the team only rehearsed for two days, followed by a 24-hour shoot from 6am one day to the next morning.
Creative director Raj, who has worked as an associate director on a few Tamil films, says he initially envisioned the dance as a music video. But the project’ became a visual story about sports, with specific characters and black imagery. It was a huge challenge to tell the whole story in a few minutes. Many artists have never been in front of the camera before.
According to Raju, the creative freedom given to Kavita helped a lot in projecting an “authentic story”.
Priyadarshini says they were fully prepared by the time they went to the shoot.
All of us were explained the entire story from beginning to end. As the black queen, I had maximum moves. As a Bharatanatyam dancer, I thought I would use those steps, but it wasn’t meant to be. It is choreographed to focus on collective body movement dynamics.
So as she moves one square at a time like a queen on a chessboard, she is surrounded by faces painted according to the traditional Tamil art form, in which men are dressed as horses.
Suram Sahana, who has previously collaborated with Ramu in several dance performances, played the role of the white queen.
White King Srinivas, a classical dancer. Karupu Raja Manikandan, a freestyle dancer. Poikal horse artists Muthikuran, Deepan, Bhaskar and Cheran, Manikandan, Karthikeyan, Manojkumar, Prathaban, Karthik, Lakshmanan, Diwakar, Priyadarshan, Nishanthi, Urvashi, Rithika Jayalakshmi, Narmada, Kripavathi, Durga and Soundarya were also part of the video.
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