The Dance of Joy

Dawn's review of Sub Rang describes the paintings as bursts of colour set against the gallery's black and white walls. Women are frozen mid-movement in joyful dance, wearing colourful Thari ghagras and cholis that seem to merge into the air.

The reviewer reads the chequered strokes as the Sindhi ralli design, extending beyond the bodies into the surrounding space, and names the four Tharparkar dances the works depict: dandan rand, mitko, chakkar rand and rasooro, the last danced with sticks called daandiyaan.

A solo dancer under a light evokes the sema of the dervishes. A circle of seven women forms a rainbow. An archway references the Sindhi-Gujarati architecture of Makli and the temples of Tharparkar. The paintings, the review concludes, celebrate women's freedom to dance.

This is a summary of the published review. The full text belongs to Dawn · EOS.