More than 10 centuries ago, an ageing astronomer and mathematician, Omar Khayyam, turned his existential anguish into poetry and composed over 1,000 four-line verses as a serenade to life and a lament on eternity.

Khayyam’s The Rubaiyattraverses the murky waters between life and afterlife, God and godlessness, and doubt and mysticism, with the nimble feet of both the Sufi and the heretic. Its imagery summons the crimson of youth and the silver of cold moonlight, as if the poet was intoxicated by the pleasure of being alive, even as passing moments steal away the time that remains to enjoy it. Khayyam’s Rubaiyat: Echoes in Dance draws from Edward Fitzgerald’s carefully curated translation of the original work. His sensitive treatment of the material recreates the mood of intense sensuality, rapture and urgency.

In this production, the dancers’ bodies converse with the sea of ideas that Khayyám sets adrift in his work. Using techniques of odissi and contemporary vocabularies drawn from Indian movement traditions, they manifest many reflections of his poetry through the body. Music influenced by Sufism and inflected by Hindustani classicism carry forth the journey of the dancer and the experience of the spectator. This is a yearning: a combination of movement, dance, music and the stirring imagination of a Persian mathematician who desired to be a poet. Dancer & Choreographer: Raka Maitra

Dancers: Aparna Nambiar Pooja Parameswaran Jayasri Narayanan Rithika Pahwa Saranya Sundararajan Shruthi Bhathina Srilakshmi Raghunathan

Musicians: Vocals: Saroj Mohanty Sitar: Subrata De Tabla: Nawaz Mirajkar

Dramaturgy: T. Sasitharan Stage Design: Zai Kuning Lighting Design: Alberta Wileo