Padmini Chettur
Stilling (2024)
film
8’ 51”

Choreography and dance: Padmini Chettur
Sound: Maarten Visser
Direction and film: Madhavan Palanisamy
Commission: Dystopia Biennial, Berlin

To the left or to the right? Clockwise or anti-clockwise? What is it to turn on an axis, hold tension, reverse movement as functions that are gritty and full of life? A choreographic conversation between twelve fragmented oscillations, Stilling is a meditation on the technicalities of rotation. A landscape of partly repetitive actions draws attention to the spatial and temporal relationships in between: harmonies and disharmonies, the individual within the collective, a palette of chaos from which forms slowly emerge. In an age of growing disembodiment, Stilling is a reminder of the necessary irregularities of our bodies. A non-dualistic grid of movements that appear irreconcilable brings us to a moment of poised stillness—not the hard stop that signals the end, but one that signifies the possibility of a beginning again.