Amsterdam

Not an easy mission which Rachel Beaujean, deputy director of Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam, and director Ted Brandsen had undertaken: a decolonial version of La Bayadère (1877) that retains the highlights of the second act, but does not appropriate Indian culture and avoids stereotype—submissive fakirs, noble warriors, and passionate temple dancers. Together with the Dutch-Indian choreographer and cultural anthropologist Kalpana Raghuraman and the Australian-Indian dance historian and choreographer Priya Srinivasan, they did a superb job for the premiere at the end of March.