Kathak Bandi Dance Collective

Phagun...esho tumi shomarohe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqg1k5A1ITI&feature=youtu.be

Thank you MODArts, Harlem-New York for curating the collective's work along with 18 other works by women and woman identifying choreographers of colour from around the globe for the 6th annual 'Collective Thread' festival. See you in March 2021.

Year 2020, you have been a year of frustration, hope and self-discovery. Before I say Goodbye to you I would like to whole-heartedly thank everyone who I have learnt from and collaborated with amidst all your desperate attempts to enclose me. Yes, you perhaps have boxed my external self but my internal self traveled far beyond your imagination, around the globe, up in the sky and down under the ocean. And in that journey, I was accompanied by Ravi Naimpally(Canada), Tanveer A...lam Shawjeeb(Bangladesh), Imran Noor Mohammed(Canada), Shawn Barry(Canada), Katheen Rea(Canada), Dr. Amita Dutt(India), Ananya Dance Theatre(USA), Ariel Guiterrez(Germany), Lionel Menard(France), Cat Gerrard(Germany), Adi Weinberg(Germany), Kathakali Jana(India), BICAR(India), Sudipta Dawn(India), Dr. Janardan Ghosh(India), Nicola Pianzola(Italy) and Anna Dora Dorno(Italy). So 2020, your offering of constriction became my key to expansion! Didn't it?

Banging my head this week with Berliners to articulate our artistic manifestos for the 21st century. Should I declare publicly that 'Dance is a pandemic' to resonate with Antonin Artaud's declaration or treatment of 'theatre as plague or epidemic'? :) :)

4 months into the lockdown and it hasn't actually turned out too bad in terms of productivity - completed a 6-week long resourceful Kathak course by University Grant Commission, Delhi that was taught by Udayshankar Professor of Rabindra Bharati University Dr. Amita Dutt, made myself familiar with the movement language Yorcha for 2 months through online classes offered by Ananya Dance Theatre, Minnesota, walked down the memory lane of Lucknow for 10 weeks with percussionist Ravi Naimpally and now having a friendly fight with my music composer Shawjeeb over a piece of music that we are collaboratively composing for new work. The next two months, people from Berlin will brainwash me with their peculiar ideas :) Not bad, eh?

Hello, Toronto based innovative, dynamic and thought-provoking movers: Here is a fantastic opportunity for you to showcase your work (virtually) at Night Shift during the Fall for Dance North 2020. The work will be live-streamed from the Citadel+Compagnie studio and it will be one artist per night for a total of 6 artists over 6 nights. If you have a work that is a maximum of 15 minutes in length and is created with original music or with music available in the public domain then do not wait. Apply! I had a fantastic time last year presenting my solo work in this event with support from brilliant curators and a clever production team. https://www.citadelcie.com/nightshift/

You can dance anywhere and everywhere, taking inspiration from the architecture and the geography of the landscape that surrounds you or simply notice how the sun and its associated shadow can be the sources of play ....this was impromptu at a white Sand Dune in Ontario in 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6xkZzFi8gs&feature=youtu.be

A blog post written by me for Shooting Gallery Performance Series, Vancouver where we are presenting a new work-in-progress virtually in November 2020 https://shootinggalleryperformance.wordpress.com//meet-t/

Honoured to be part of the digital exhibition 'HEAR US NOW!' for BIPOC artists by EAHR Concordia.

Preparing for a new work...documenting for the collaborators :) ...an old Chakradhar Paran from Lucknow Gharana https://www.youtube.com/watch

We, at Kathak Bandi Dance Collective, are very thrilled and honoured to be selected by the Ethnocultural Art History Research Group at Concordia University to share our offering 'Shifting Normal' at its 'HEAR US NOW!' digital exhibition by BIPOC artists. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all my collaborators whom I have bugged ((:) to get this work done during this time of uncertainty - Imran Noor Mohammed, Dewan Masud Karim, Tanveer Alam Shawjeeb and Shawn Barry. The full work goes on exhibition after September 13, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-pApdcF7Ao

I allowed myself permission to enter every channel in this experimentation of mine. Great and playful collaborations with the team. And Thank you Nova Bhattacharya and Citadel+Compagnie for the opportunity to share it at Night Shift 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm-qUT7LCG0&feature=youtu.be

It is one thing to be outcast by South Asian Classical Dancers but the issue is something totally different when a group of American 'art/theatre' students whose understanding of South Asian Classical Dance forms begins and ends in Wikipedia points fingers at your art form and goes all the way to tell you that your understanding of art is narrowed by your training. How should I term that? 'Art-racism'?? or 'THIS IS ART, DON'T COME IN HERE BECAUSE YOUR ART IS INFERIOR'??