Oakland Ballet Company Presents JANGALA

Oakland Ballet Company presents the Bay Area premiere of Jangala, a dance theater work by Artistic Director, Graham Lustig, on March 13, 2018 at Castro Valley High School Performing Arts Center. Jangala is a family-friendly performance inspired by Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, that fuses contemporary ballet with movement vocabulary from the south Indian classical form, bharatanatyam. The dance follows the story of a lost boy, Mowgli, who is adopted by a pack of wolves and must use his wits to survive in the wild. Lustig has transplanted the action to a modern city, re-imagining the animal characters and their costumes for the urban jungle of contemporary India, complete with disco nightclubs, construction sites, and junkyards inhabited by feral dogs.

Jangala features a case of 11 female and five male dancers, and the lead role of Mowgli is danced by Sanchit Babbar, an alumnus of the Ailey School (a 2015 graduate of the school's Scholarship Program) who was born and raised in New Delhi. The recorded music score mixes upbeat bhangra and Bollywood music with classical ragas and folkloric music from across India. The company is joined by guest artist, bharatanatyam dancer Nadhi Thekkek, who dances the role of Mowgli's human mother, Messua. Thekkek's Bay Area company, Nava Dance Theatre, will begin the performance with a newly commissioned narrative dance work in the bharatanatyam tradition, created especially for these performances and featuring live music.