A colourful mirage of video projections, performers on stilts, acrobats and aerial artists emerging from a murky darkness, performing
to the beat of mesmerising music. Doesn’t just the description bring to mind a vivid setting? This setting is part of Omaggio’s musical theatre show, ‘The Playground’. Featuring contemporary dance performances, the show is fast becoming a must see attraction in the state. Choreographer and artistic director Tino Sanchez and his life partner, actor and dancer Peeya Rai Chaudhari, have been training 12 youngsters to bring out their best for the show.
Tino and Peeya both have international training and work experience. While Tino performed in Madrid, London and New York in
productions like ‘Miss Saigon’, ‘Chicago’ and ‘West Side Story’, Peeya has worked as a VJ and acted in films like Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Bride and Prejudice’ before falling in love with dance. Interestingly, they found the fine line of fusion between Western professional performing arts techniques with Eastern spiritual practices, bringing together the two different influences onto a single stage.
“In Goa, there was no must see tourist attraction like the world-famous Cirque du Soleil which could provide live entertainment which
tourists and even Goans could enjoy. Now looking at the performance, other youngsters can see how to perform in Goa using different techniques and they too can aspire to be live performers,” says Peeya Rai Chaudhari, who, along with Tino, formed Omaggio which translates to ‘homage’ in Italian.
Omaggio was formed in March 2013 with 12 youngsters from different parts of the country who came down to Goa to train under Tino and
Peeya. “We have members from Kashmir, Pune, Bangalore, Manipur, Jaipur and Goa and all are brimming with energy. Since it is a three-year program, we decided to offer a six months scholarship to the students when they started out with the course. This is the first performance we have showcased after all the training. We want to be the first Indian performance company of its kind to travel in the European circuit, a dream that seems achievable in the next two years,” explains Peeya.
The day at Omaggio starts with yoga, chanting and pranayama before moving on to ballet dance, jazz, aerials and acrobats as all these elements are essential to bring on the complete performance. “We want to have a performance of international standards. It is our first production and it has been going houseful since the first show. We are really grateful to David and Ricky D’Souza who were the first to support our dream and give us studio space at Tito’s Whitehouse in Arpora,” says Peeya, adding that every part of the set has been created by the members of the performance.
The musical dance and acrobatic theatre has Goa’s Joanne Fernandes singing her own compositions as well as songs by bands like
Beatles, Hair and Enigma. The characters keep evolving and we continue to make new additions to the show. Even if one has seen the show for the first time, their next experience will certainly not be the same. “We are working on adding more compositions by Joanne for the coming shows. The feedback has been tremendous with the audience saying that they get goose bumps while watching the show. It pays for all the sleepless nights we had planning for the entire performance.”
‘The Playground’ has shows on Friday at 7.30 pm and 8.30 pm and on Sunday at 7.30 pm at Tito’s Whitehouse in Arpora
