“The unpredictability of what will happen is what makes something alive. It is not about trying to recreate aesthetics or trying to make what people expect you to be making.”
Read MoreInside the Institution: The Place
in Interviews
Bharatanatyam
Committing to the Classical: Akram Khan Company’s Classical Intensive
in Response
This immersion allowed for an engagement with dance that was synchronous across our physical, emotional, musical and intellectual selves - a synchrony that is otherwise hard to come by in the disjointed nature of freelance urban life.
Read MoreVisibly Unpalatable
in Commission
I am a practitioner of a dance form that not many white people have heard of, let alone are able to pronounce, so half the conversations I have are reduced to me trying to explain what I do. These conversations inaccurately render Bharatanatyam a minority practice, and I a minority artist, trying endlessly to relate what I do to an elusive notion of ‘mainstream dance’.
Read MoreHere and Now: In Conversation with Mythili Prakash
in Interviews
Mythili Prakash is one of the Four By Four nominated choreographers of Dance Umbrella 2019. I speak to her about the work she will be premiering, ‘Here and Now’.
Read More'Descendants' : 29/09/19
in Response
A treat to see the distinctly different destinations that choreographic trajectories can take, especially when those journeys start off with shared classical vocabularies.
Read MoreSadir: A Forgotten Heritage
in Response
I associated something this Islamic with kathak rather than bharatanatyam. It didn’t take long however for this connotation to unravel; the Sultanate courts of the Mughal Carnatic in the 18th century had a significant influence on the artistic activities of the time, and the Nawabs of Arcot were huge patrons for dance and music in southern India.
Read More'Shivam' : 15/06/19
in Response
Jaivant Patel gave audiences in Wolverhampton a rare treat on Saturday 15th June; an evening that was special both for its programming of classical work, and its focus on male performers.
Read More"The Technical Standards of Dance Achieved in the UK Do Not Match Those of India"
in Commission
Chennai is undoubtedly the motherland of bharatanatyam, a rich source of tradition, knowledge and technical expertise. Hosts to the most tightly curated bharatanatyam festivals in the world, Chennai is also a gatekeeper of tradition and thus becomes a benchmark for quality bharatanatyam. The UK in comparison has but a fledgling bharatanatyam industry, where practitioners focus on making work that can sit alongside that of mainstream dance choreographers and win over audiences that know nothing of their form.
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