For this performance, Dakshina presents three programs in one night--Songs of My Life, Going Against the Flow and an open mic performance--all in one of the hottest nightclubs on the east coast.

Songs of My Life
Songs of My Life links a series of choreographed vignettes—each of which represents a snapshot of certain relationship or situation that might happen in a club. Between the vignettes, a DJ spins live mixes of songs while audience and cast members alike are invited to dance. Songs of My Life toys with stereotypical masculine/feminine roles and celebrates a range of human sexuality.

Daniel Singh, director of Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company, credits a trip to Cuba as the inspiration for Songs of My Life.  When he visited dance clubs, he was impressed by the range of individuals on the dance floor: “You would see a 16-year-old dancing next to an 80- or 90-year-old. A great-grandmother dancing with her great-grandson… Their society has a different notion of dance; it’s not as stratified as it is here. Dance is a vital part of their community and expression.”

Singh hopes the audience will come away from the performance thinking about club dancing in a different light. “We often end up privileging the dance of conservatories and university settings and devaluing what happens in the clubs.” He defends the validity of club dancing as an art form: “It’s an extension of what happens in a conservatory. Club dancers often spend hours training and perfecting their moves. What looks off-the-cuff is in fact the result of years of training—their own training.”

Going Against the Flow
This project is a dynamic collaboration of improvised spoken word and movement. Mark Chalfant and Daniel Phoenix Singh have brought actors and dancers together for this project. Chalfant leads the cutting-edge improv group Washington Improv Theater (WIT), and Singh directs the Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company. This project uses themes elicited from the audience to create quick scenes. The moods range from silly to poignant, but the scenes are sure to surprise and invigorate audiences with their sometimes seamless, sometimes lightning-fast mood and topic changes. The project plays with the notion of everyday life as a series of improvisations, and pushes the actors and dancers to think on their feet (literally and figuratively) as each player tries to support and challenge the others at the same time.