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Erasing Borders 2009: Festival of Indian Dance
August 19th, 2009 – Free Lunchtime Performances
In collaboration with the 28th Annual Downtown Dance Festival
Artist Bios
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| Aniruddhan Vasudevan (Bharatanatyam) |
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Aniruddhan has 20 years of training in Bharatanatyam. He began training in his hometown, Kumbakonam, in the Kattumannar Koil Paani (style) by Kalaimamani Kuttalam.M. Salvam. For further training he moved to Chennai to study with Padma Sri Smt. Chitra Visweswaran. He has several solo performances to his credit, along with duet and group productions as a company member of the Chidambaram Academy of Performing Arts (CAPA). CAPA is an institution devoted to the arts and run by the well know artist-couple Smt. Chitra Visweswaran and Sri R. Visweswaran, in Chennai. For the period of 2003-2005, Aniruddhan’s dance training was supported by the National Scholarship for Outstanding Artists, offered by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Govt. of India. Along with Padma Govindan, Aniruddhan runs the Shakti Center, a non-profit collective in Chennai, India, which works with issues of gender and sexuality. In addition to exploring politics through dance, Anirudhhan is also an advocate for gay and lesbian equality in India.
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| inDANCE (Post-Modern/ Contemporary Bhratanatyam) |
| Hari Krishnan (Artistic Director) |
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| Photo by Rex |
inDANCE is a Toronto-based South Asian dance company established in 1999 as a vehicle to encompass the entire range of artistic director Hari Krishnan's creative output: choreography, performance, touring, and teaching. The primary mandate of inDANCE is to form creative partnerships with Canadian and international collaborators, including choreographers, dancers, musicians, designers, scholars and presenters.
The company produces work that is bold, full of risks and adventurous. Radical innovation, an uncompromising standard of excellence, and socio-political consciousness characterize the company's repertoire and its approach to dance-making. Using a post post-modern, post post-structuralist dance vocabulary that is extracted from contemporary Bharatanatyam and Modern Dance, inDANCE's experiments in movement and mimesis are path-breaking and critically acclaimed. www.indance.ca |
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| Emily Watts (Dancer, inDANCE) |
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| Photo by Karen Andrew |
Emily Watts (Dancer, inDANCE) is a New Yorkbased performer and arts administrator. Credits include Amnesia Wars' vaudeville performance in Times Square, Chashama's storefront window project on 42nd Street, Ballet Iowa, The Neuman Dance Project, and Iowa Dance Theater as well as guest teaching at Wesleyan University, The New School, and NYU. Emily has been performing for inDANCE since 2003 in appearances at multiple venues across the US, Canada, & India. Performance credits with inDANCE include Bollywood Hopscotch, Exhalations, Black and White in COLOR, Owning Shadows and Firecracker. Emily recently performed a sold out season of inDANCE's production BOX at Joyce SoHo in New York City. A graduate of Wesleyan University's Dance Department, when not performing she runs the arts liability insurance program at Fractured Atlas, a national arts service organization. |
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| Paul Charbonneau (Dancer, inDANCE) |
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Paul Charbonneau (Dancer, inDANCE) Paul began his artistic training exploring theatre and dance in various organizations back home in Sudbury, Ontario. After making the move to Toronto in 2006, he began his professional training at Ryerson University in Dance Performance. With one year left to go before graduating, he’s already had the opportunity to work with such inspiring dance artists as Piotr Beirnat, William Young, Daril Tracey, Courtnae Bowman, Donald Sales, Robert Glumback and Hari Krishnan. Paul was recently featured in Acalanto, a video presentation funded by one of CTV’s BravoFACT much sought after grants. A constant fixture on the Ryerson main stage, Paul has also appeared in Ryerson Dances 07/08, Ryerson Choreographic Works 08/09, NuitBlanche, and the 2009 New Voices Festival.
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| Infin8 (Pop/ Hip hop) |
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| Photo by Atif Ateeq |
Infin8 is a New York City-based dance company, created in an effort to not only promote the beauty of the South Asian culture, but also to bring to light contemporary issues that plague South Asians, and all human beings alike. Through dance, Infin8 hopes to enlighten, inspire, and engage its audiences. What is “Infin8?” “Infin8” represents the 8 founding members of this company and the infinite opportunities they have to grow with their audiences. The eight founding members began dancing together 6 years ago as members of NYU Nasha where they learned the power of communicating through movement. Infin8 has since tackled issues such as the identity of women, empowering the youth, and the appreciation of what they have been blessed with. www.infin8dance.com
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| Labyrinth Dance Theater (Modern) |
| Sasha Spielvogel, Artistic Director |
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Labyrinth Dance Theater is a New York-based modern dance company with international reach, having performed in major dance spaces and amphitheaters across the United States, Europe and the Middle East. The company consistently creates works that deal with mythical and cultural issues, timeless ideas and values with great emotional and psychological depth and beauty. LDT’s work communicates not only through the dance medium, but also through acting, puppetry and film. Labyrinth commissions original live music to accompany its dances. Labyrinth’s work has been described as “Striking!” (Jack Anderson, The New York Times); “A blazing whole of power and compassion. This was an amazing event” (Rondo Magazine); “A POWERFUL achievement performed superbly. Ms. Spielvogel raised the art form to where it should always be: TOWERING!” (Attitude Magazine). Labyrinth has received grants from the Spanish and Finnish Consulates, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, the Finlandia Foundation, the Wihuri Foundation, the Harkness Foundation, the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, the Rita Porestky Foundation, BAM/651 and the 92nd Street Y. www.labyrinthdancetheater.org
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| Felicia Norton (Dancer and co-choreographer) |
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Felicia Norton (Dancer and co-choreographer) studied at American Ballet Theatre and is a graduate of Hamilton College. Her solo repertory, created for her by several dance luminaries, has been performed to critical acclaim at festivals internationally. She is featured in the book, Dancers, by Philip Traeger. Jennifer Dunning of The New York Photo by Atif Ateeq Times described her as “an extraordinary dancer” and The London Times’ John Percival wrote she was “the single best dancer, performing with a display of extraordinary sensual intensity.” Her collaborations with violinist Leroy Jenkins, a Bessie Award winner and Guggenheim Fellow, were commissioned four times by the Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival. Ms Norton traveled with Sasha Spielvogel to Finland to premiere Sacred & Blue and appears in Ms. Spielvogel’s film, Dark Angel.
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| The Sa Dance Company (Folk) |
| Payal Kadakia (Artistic Director) |
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Sa Dance, founded by Artistic Director Payal Kadakia, is committed to increasing awareness of Indian dance in the mainstream. It serves as a platform for expressing the Indian-American identity through movement inspired by Indian folk, classical, and Bollywood dance as well as jazz, ballet, and contemporary dance. The name "Sa" originates from the foundation of Indian classical music where "sa" is the first note in the Indian musical octave. Payal Kadakia has been trained in Indian classical and folk dance under the instruction of Usha Patel. She has also studied other forms of dance such as ballet, hip-hop, and jazz. Sa Dance company dancers have been trained in various forms of American and Indian dance forms such as Kathak, Bharatnatyam, Odissi, Ballet, Hip-hop, Jazz, Garba, Bhangra, and Bollywood. Grace, beauty, and artistic integrity combine with creative choreography are characteristics of Payal's work. Her work has been showcased at Dancing at the Crossroads in Times Square, Lincoln Center, and The Ailey Studios and has also been published in a Bollywood Anthology called "Global Bollywood." www.sadancecompany.com
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| Sakshi Productions (Odissi) |
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Sakshi Productions is an Odissi dance company that creates and performs neo-classical and contemporary works. Our mission is to present compelling dance that draws on a diverse movement vocabulary but yet is anchored in Indian classical traditions. We hope to use each performance as a way to collaborate and create dialogue within our shared communities and spaces. Sakshi Productions was founded by Kakoli Mukherjee and Nandini Sikand. www.sakshiproductions.org
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| Nandini Sikand (Dancer) |
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Nandini Sikand (Dancer) has trained in Odissi dance and is currently a disciple of Guru Durga Charan Ranbir. She co-founded the Odissi dance company, Trinayan Collective and co-directed it from 2003-2008. Other performance credits include The Habitat Centre (New Delhi), Lincoln Center, Joyce Soho (multiple presentations), the United Nations, Danny Kaye Playhouse, (Hunter College), Brooklyn Museum of Art, Pace University, John Jay College and The Graduate Center, CUNY. Nandini is also the Associate Director and on the board of directors for Harmattan Theater, a performance group committed to an environmentally and socially engaged theater. Nandini Sikand is a filmmaker and a doctoral candidate in Cultural Anthropology at The Graduate Center, CUNY. |
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| Rahul Acharya (Dancer) |
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Rahul Acharya (Dancer) started studying Odissi dance at the age of 4, attracted to it by a strong passion for the profoundly religious experience of traditional dance. He also studied Hatha and Raja Yoga at the Satyananda Yoga Vidyalaya, Bihar School of Yoga. Along with his dedication for the arts, Rahul obtained a Master of Sciences in Biotechnology. Rahul has been a recipient of several prestigious awards from the Government of India and is an empanelled artist with the I.C.C.R., a member of the UNESCO International Dance Council and the World Movement of Indian Fine Arts in Italy. Based in Orissa (India), Rahul has performed extensively throughout the world as a solo artist, guest artist and as part of the ensemble Nrutyacharya throughout South America, Europe, Southeast Asia & Borneo and USA. http://www.jagannatha.net/rahul.html |
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