This eclectic mix of dance styles curated by Gauri Sharma Tripathi will comprise of four performances:

Title 1: Bardo Beings

Performer: Diya Naidu 

Time: 6:00PM to 6:40PM

About the Artist:

Diya is an independent movement artist based in India.

Her primary practices have been movement centered - Contemporary Dance, Kalaripayattu, Partner work, massage, Yoga, Kathak, and Jazz Ballet among others.

These interact with her animist practice, research on touch and intimacy, and her love for writing, to name a few areas of interest. 

Her muse is the people around her and the spaces between us. With intense connection and vulnerability comes intense fear, nakedness, and resistance. 

Through experiential learning, it has come to her that everything that happens around oneself is also taking place within. While this can be terrifying, it also is empowering. 

As an artist, in this very moment, she sees her function as that of the one listening and witnessing. To listen to what is needed is work, a labour that she is committed to doing and inviting others to join in.

About the Programme:

Beings of the Bardo are imagined beings. Whether we have experienced them, we will not know for sure. And if we know... then perhaps we are already in Bardo.

'Bardo' - a word that simply means a "transition", or a gap between the completion of one situation and the onset of another. The work explores a state of being in a world of repetitive cyclical attachment.

We observe that as a community and a species we are in fact, in Bardo. According to the Tibetan Book Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, "One of the central characteristics of the bardos is that they are periods of deep uncertainty". He proposes, "to live in the modern world is to live in what is clearly a bardo realm; you don't have to die to experience one".

The beings in the world of this piece are 'in dependence' - in that, they depend on each other to remain bound, stimulated, and stuck. They are each other's nemesis, intimate other, and reflection among other things.

What would it mean for them to be out of dependence? Perhaps, we who are bound here, cannot even conceive of it.

As humans we interact and engage in many ways, the reptilian, mammalian, and other primal selves are constantly at play, and our pasts are interacting with our presents in nebulous ways. We are often torn between seemingly binary forces as all around us the divide between factions becomes greater.

We take this time to simply physically examine the intense interaction between seemingly separate parts of a whole, separate selves or disparate identities. In this clash and conflict, there is a kind of training, a preparation for the bardo and its demands.

Title 2: Sacred

Performer: Tarini Tripathi

Time: 6:50PM to 7:10PM

About The Artist: 

Tarini Tripathi is a third-generation Kathak dancer and entrepreneur who has trained under both her mother and grandmother. She brings a fresh perspective to this art form. She is also the founder of a fitness company, KatFit that incorporates Kathak elements in a physical regime.

About the Programme:

'Sacred’ explores our pilgrim for the divine, not knowing that it is within. The Kathak performance embraces oral legends, like Kabir, Bullehshah, and Narsinh Mehta. For centuries we are asking questions about a reunion with God. Intertwined age-old lyrics with contemporary times. Set to music by Hiren Raghunath Chate from Samraga. The piece transmits different energies all leading to one path, one journey of life. In search of the Sacred, the Rosary.

Title 3: Araajakta

Performer: Mellita D’Souza

Time: 7:20PM to 7:30PM

About the Artist:

Mellita is a contemporary movement artist and musical and physical theatre practitioner with 10 years of performing, teaching, and choreographing experience. Her aim is to create and perform works that break the norm, question, and inspire. Having studied movement principles from artists across the globe, her practice now involves exploring the body's natural instincts in response to nature, humans, animals, and space around and how the use of breath affects these relationships. Her works include performances in arts festivals like Celebrate Bandra, Jhamela Art Expo, Prayatna Film and Dance Festival Pune, musicals like Gandhi The musical and Disneys Aladdin, and short films Faux Pas and One Earth One Spirit. Her solo work-in-progress piece Araajakta was showcased in The Sanskar Virtual Festival 2020, Indo Canadian Nautanki Festival 2021, and The Prakriti Excellence in Contemporary Dance Awards 2022.

About the Programme:

Araajakta is a piece based on the theme of chaos and uncertainty in today’s time through the journey of a female soloist. It deals with the chaos that resides both within and around us. We are always fighting many demons in our minds and social isolation only aggravates it. While the nature of chaos keeps changing it remains constant and creates an eternal loop. Does freedom mean to give in, accept and live with it? Or do we keep fighting our way out of the cycle of an ever-changing chaotic pandemonium, towards freedom?

Title 4: Elemental 360: Water

Performer: Veronica Jose

Duration: 7:40PM to 7:45PM

About the Artist: 

Veronica P. Jose‘s career in the performing arts comprises over 21 years of experience in learning, performing, and teaching in India including 7 years of experience as a choreographer. She was trained in Indian Classical ‘Bharat Natyam’ for 12 years under Guru Ravi Sharma, founder of Art Society Mumbai. She is also trained in Classical Ballet, Jazz, Contemporary, and Urban at The Danceworx Performing Arts Academy under the Artistic Director and Choreographer Mr. Ashley Lobo. Currently, she is a company member of the Navdhara India Dance Theatre, a contemporary-based company. She has toured extensively with NIDT for 6 years, performing in the United States, Israel, Germany, Poland, China, Taiwan, Canada, Mexico, Turkey, and Bahrain.