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Samskriti presents THE FOUR HORSEMEN on Sunday, March 23 at 5 PM. 2025 marks Samskriti's 30 years as a leading arts organization that has changed the cultural landscape of Houston and enriched the arts scene with its outstanding presentations by world renowned artists. One such production is The Four Horsemen by Jiva Dance Company of New York. It is a highly innovative Indian Classical dance production exploring symbolism from the story of the Apocalypse through Indian classical dance, music, and Sanskrit poetry. The work centers around four vignettes of life and death through four female protagonists who stand for universal human experience. The stories - a woman shackled to the life of a courtesan (conquest), a woman reminiscing the night she spent with her lover who is at war (war), a mother searching for nourishment for her child in the midst a sandstorm (famine), and finally a woman at the end of her life recalling memories that span youthful joy to hardship and loss (death) - are touchingly timely. This production is a group choreography that depicts the story of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, representing the battle between destruction and creation, despair and hope – the end of time and new beginning. Perhaps the apocalypse does not merely occur at a finite point in time when the world/time ends. Perhaps, we as humans live are living in the world marred by endless wars power plays, lust for power and control, and amidst nature who gas unleashed her fury on us for our ignorance. Is this not our apocalypse? Can there be hope to get past these struggles? The new work challenges the notion of Indian classical dance content and technique and moves beyond the traditional to incorporate a cross-cultural analysis of female experience. The work highlights original choreography by Sonali Skandan and Maya Kulkarni with music commissioned to the celebrated composer Rajkumar Bharathi (Chennai, India) and Bala Skandan (NYC) with sound design by Sai Sharavanam of Resound, India. The show features a cast of four dancers. The project is supported by funds from the inaugural Dance/NYC Dance Advancement Fund, and the NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs. The initial choreographic ideas and dramaturgy were developed in residency at Queens College through the CUNY Dance Initiative from 2017– 2018. The script was written by Shiv Subramanian and Sonali Skandan with narrative guidance from Dramaturge Kate Farrington from Pearl Theatre and Queens College. TICKETS & INFO: https://matchouston.org/events/2025/four-horsemen (fb)