Three Worlds, One Stage

This film began when we were creating a video to showcase Oddissi dancer Swagata Banerjee’s dance school, Moksha. We were inspired by what Swagata was doing in her community- bringing ancient dance into the modern age. We decided to find and follow two other artists who were performing similar ancient art forms and weaving into the fabric of Colorado community. At a time when our socio-political climate was dense with anti-immigrant sentiments, and bogged down by the horrific tension of gun violence, we agreed that this story would be a beacon of hope and positivity.

Swagata Banerjee came to the US in 2000. She brought an art-form from 2000 year-old Indian temples to the highways of Denver, Colorado. We started our search for artists of a similar profile.

We found singers from Yugoslavia, dancers from Japan, musicians from the Balkans. All of them were practicing the arts from their homelands and sharing them here, creating what we believe is the true American experience. Finally, our search landed us on Master drummer and dancer Fara Tolno from Guinea and Flamenco dancer, Maria Vazquez from Seville, Spain.

Fara Tolno had the right dynamism and personal charm for camera. He did his MFA at CU Boulder in dance and went on to become a global performer, spreading his culture.

Maria Vazquez started at a time when hardly anyone in Denver had any appreciation for flamenco. She went door to door and finally started her dance school called ‘Flamenco Denver’ at an obscure neighborhood in Colfax. Today, she teaches more than fifty students who are of mixed ethnicity and age.

The film builds up to the climactic act where these three artists meet for one afternoon and rehearse for a live fusion show to be held the following day. They find that while there is very little in common between their art forms, the sentiments are universal. In the final act, three cultures fuse on the same platform to a live audience, and create a whole new sound. The stage then becomes a metaphor of the melting pot that defines America.

As an immigrant and an Indian classical dancer, Producer/Director Roma Sur finds the story to resonate with her own experience of coming to the United States and making a life as a filmmaker. Producer/Director Jessica McGaugh has immersed herself in a body of cross-cultural work, including her feature documentary The Golden Hour. Our relationship as a cross-cultural filmmaking team adds to the overall narrative of this film, because our work is also part of the melting pot of America.

Our overall vision is to present to a global audience a sound that is ancient, yet represents this new world that we inhabit, as global citizens. It is an exciting time to be alive and to create cinema that speaks a universal language through dance, drums and music.