Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies

Sunday, April 8th, 2023 @ Bankhead Theatre

2400 First St, Livermore, CA 94551

Created and Directed by: Nadhi Thekkek

Produced by: Nava Dance Theatre

Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies is a bharatanatyam, experimental movement, and live music production that explores the labor and lived experiences of South Asian immigrant women in the US. Inspired by the oral histories of Indian nurses who arrived as a result of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, choreographer Nadhi Thekkek, and her collaborators explore the heavy and enduring work of immigrant women and the worlds they traverse between. 

Who puts a price on their labor? What is the cost of opportunity? How do we celebrate connections forged in this new homeland while grieving the connections we lost? Through community interviews, bharatanatyam dance, and live music, Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies negotiates these questions while uplifting the struggles, triumphs, and contributions of community elders who paved the way for later generations. 
Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies is an ensemble work of 7 dancers with a live original score by Roopa Mahadevan, Kalaisan Kalaichelvan, and others. Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies is created and produced by Nava Dance Theatre.

Credits:

Choreography | Nadhi Thekkek

Music Direction/Composition | Roopa Mahadevan and Kalaisan Kalaichelvan

Dancer Collaborators | Nadhi Thekkek, Shruti Abhishek, Lalli Venkat, Aishwarya Subramanian,
Janani Muthaiya, Abirami Murugappan, Aarthi Ramesh

Musician Collaborators | Roopa Mahadevan, Matt Small, Aditya Iswara,
Conal Sathi, Aarti Shankar, Maya-Rau Murthy

Lighting | Surabhi Bharadwaj

Creative Co-investigators | Kamala Devam, Shruti Abhishek

Production Support | TBD

Programs Manager/Production Manager | Purna Venugopalan

Past Collaborators/Contributors | GS Rajan, Sruti Sarathy, Sindhu Natarajan
Malavika Kumar Walia, Shelley Garg

“Composition” in Indian dance and music is not simply an act of commissioning an individual, but rather a collaborative process incorporating cultural and artistic knowledge, artistic instincts, and real-time improvisation. Each director, musician, and dancer has thus been essential to the creation of this work and its ongoing evolution. 

A special thanks to Dr. Sheba George and the Malayalee women who generously and anonymously shared their migration stories. 

Funders: Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project, San Francisco Arts Commission, California Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, East Bay Community Foundation, and New Music USA. Sections of this work have been supported by the MAP Fund, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.

***Program***

I. Negotiations 1
Dancers: Lalli, Aishwarya, Janani, Abirami, Aarti R.
Music composed by: Kalaisan Kalaichelvan
With live music accompaniment
Being in the diaspora makes us feel like we are in an in-between space, with our feet not firmly planted in one land, like treading water. But what if this in between space felt freeing, what if it felt like we felt at home in this new body, an avatar of ourselves that combines elements of all the places we call home. 

II. In This Together
Dancers: Nadhi, Shruti
Music directed by: Roopa Mahadevan, Improvised by music ensemble
In a new place where everything seems foreign, new connections become chosen families. The fun, the moments of play, the sharing of lives become the foundation for how we go through life’s ups and downs together.

III. Visa
Dancers: Janani, Aishwarya, Lalli, Aarti R.
Music: Speech by Lyndon B. Johnson; Patriotic Americana Mash-Up and Arrangement by Kalaisan Kalaichelvan; waltz and violin solo performed by Róza Lachegyi with vocal by Roopa Mahadevan, composed by Kalaisan Kalaichelvan
A common thread between all the stories seemed to be about waiting. Waiting for an opportunity, waiting for someone in a higher power to decide your fate and the fate of your family. The waiting room of a consulate office can carry so many stories. 

IV. Bootstraps
Dancers: Shruti, Lalli, Aishwarya, Abirami, Janani
Music arranged by: Roopa Mahadevan, Created with the entire music ensemble
The pressure to build a life has always felt like a huge part of our story. But pride and ego often get in the way of this. But when things fall apart, we have a choice, we can start again, or we can reach out for help. Which do people choose and why? 

V. This is Work Too
Dancer: Nadhi
Music composed by: Roopa Mahadevan
Culture bearer, bollywood star, homemaker? Builder, breadwinner, boss? What are the expectations we work to meet? In the US, there are these roles that women find themselves filling, and it gets exhausting.

VI. Foreign Bodies
Dancers: Nadhi, Shruti, Aishwarya
Music composed by: Kalaisan Kalaichelvan
Inspired by the witness statements of women who came to the US to work after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. We think about decades of work, losing old connections, making new ones, obligations, and the very physical toll our work over a lifetime takes on the body. The words narrated by Nadhi and Shruti are inspired from interviews. 

***INTERMISSION***

 VII. Lullaby
Dancers: Nadhi, Janani, Aarthi, Aishwarya
Music composed by: Roopa Mahadevan
Lyrics by: Nadhi Thekkek, Thampy Antony (Nadhi’s father)

“Omanakunje, don't cry,
Your mom will come running!
She'll save you like a beautiful goddess, before you suffer any pain.
And she will go far to keep you safe and secure.”

Many women spoke about having to go to the US for work, but having to leave their children behind for sometime to make the world better for themselves and their kids. Many talk about the combination of regret and necessity in this decision and continue to grapple with that choice today. This experience is common across so many communities. But in a way I see these women as heroes - making these choices are not easy. This bedtime story pays tribute to the Malayalee aunties in my life. Wouldn’t it be amazing for us to tell these stories of our elders to our kids in a way that makes them the complex heroines that they are?

VIII. Sneaking Out
Dancers: Nadhi, Lalli
Music composed by: GS Rajan
Conflicts between generations are so nuanced. Kids want to live the typical American life, and immigrant parents are still figuring it all out. 

 IX. Grief
Dancers: Nadhi, Lalli, Aishwarya, Janani, Abirami, Aarti R.
Music composed by: GS Rajan
Words by: Nadhi Thekkek
Being so far away, always meant a lack of closure when it comes to grief. Not everyone is able to say goodbye, or attend funerals when losing loved ones back in India. How does the community support each other in times of grief? During the pandemic, this took another turn as the level of loss everyone faced was unprecedented in many ways. Being in a different country, travel restrictions, illness, all of this made saying goodbye even more difficult. 

X. Bootstraps Reprise
Dancers: Nadhi, Lalli, Aishwarya, Janani, Abirami, Aarti R.
Music arranged by: Roopa Mahadevan, Improvised by music ensemble
Is there a way to get over all the struggle with needing to make a life for yourself without any help at all? What can it mean if we aren’t afraid to reach out to each other for help? Could we get over our pride and our egos and actually receive help from our communities? Could this set an example for the next generation?

XI. Humor Saves Us All
Dancers: Lalli, Aishwarya, Janani, Abirami, Aarti R.
Music: Mashup of work by the dancers and musicians with a composition in Hamsanadham by Sruti Sarathy, Jathi by Malavika Walia and additional phrases by Roopa Mahadevan
Gotta find joy at the end of it all. We play games, jam together, and make some dance and music. Immigrant experiences also mean forming new communities and enjoying the new cultural worlds we find ourselves in. 

XII. Ancestors
Dancers: Lalli, Aishwarya, Janani, Abirami, Aarti R.
Music composed by: Kalaisan Kalaichelvan and Roopa Mahadevan
Created with entire music ensemble
Stories of women are not often at the forefront in the media or in our history books, however they are present in our bodies and inform how we move about in the world.

NAVA DANCE THEATRE IS A 501(C)3 REGISTERED NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION.

Nava Dance Theatre is a bharatanatyam dance company based in San Francisco, unceded territory of the Ohlone people. They use the South Indian dance form to navigate place, identity, and politics through the lens of lived experience.
You can make a donation here.

About the Artists

Nadhi Thekkek | Artistic Director | Choreographer | Performer
Nadhi Thekkek is the Artistic Director of Nava Dance Theatre, a bharatanatyam dance company. She uses the south Indian dance form to navigate place, identity, and politics through the lens of her lived experience as a South Asian and hyphenated-American woman.
Past work includes: “Broken Seeds Still Grow,” created and directed by Nadhi and visual artist Rupy C. Tut, was an exploration of their ancestry and an examination of cultural othering during the 1947 Partition of British India; “Unfiltered,” a bharatanatyam work exploring the #metoo movement in collaboration with Rasika Kumar and Sahasra Sambamoorthi; and “Passage” a bharatanatyam and modern dance exploration choreographed on Randee Paufve and Shruti Abhishek. Her choreography has been supported through: National Endowment for the Arts, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Dancers’ Group, California Arts Council, CounterPulse, East Bay Community Foundation and others.
She created the Unrehearsed (Virtual) Artist Residency Program, directed by Tanu Sreedharan to support South Asian dance makers across the globe. She also serves on the board of the Western Arts Alliance and co-chairs the WAA Hyphen + Asian Affinity Group.

Nadhi Thekkek learned from Guru Smt. Sundara Swaminathan (Kala Vandana Dance Company, San Jose, CA) and Guru Smt. Padmini Chari (Nritya School of Dance, Houston, TX). Since 2012, she has continued training under Guru Sri. A. Lakshmanaswamy (Chennai, India).

Shruti Abhishek | Creative Co-Investigator | Rehearsal Director | Dance Collaborator
Shruti Abhishek joined Nava in 2016. She received her strong foundation from Guru Smt Rohini.M.Singhi. She also received her bachelors degree in performing arts from Nalanda Nritya Kala Mahavidyala (by Dr.Kanak Rele) in Mumbai. Currently, Shruti is training with Sri. Vaibhav Arekar, Mumbai, and has been touring with his company, Sankhya for the last 4 years.

Kamala Devam | Creative Co-Investigator | Rehearsal Director
Kamala Devam is an international and multilingual dance artist, performing, teaching and choreographing in the UK and US. Her 13-year training in bharatanatyam with K.P. and Katherine Kunhiraman, and later contemporary dance at San Francisco State University, has led her to perform in a wide range of companies including Akram Khan Company, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance and California Contemporary Dancers. Kamala formed Kamala Devam Company in 2016 to further explore the continuum between western and Indian aesthetics, themes and movement forms. Her company shows and education work tour the UK, supported by Arts Council England, UK dance organisations and theatre and university residencies. www.kamaladevamcompany.com

Roopa Mahadevan | Music Director | Vocalist 
Roopa Mahadevan is a leading second-generation Indian classical and crossover vocalist in the American diaspora known for her powerful, emotive voice and collaborative versatility. She leads Roopa in Flux, an ensemble featuring musicians in jazz, soul/R&B, and various global traditions, directs the innovative choir Navatman Music Collective, and sings for leading Bharathanatyam/contemporary dancers. Trained in Carnatic music under Asha Ramesh and later Suguna Varadachari as a Fulbright scholar, she has performed at diverse venues like Chennai's Music Academy, Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana, Lincoln Center, MET Museum, Hollywood Bowl, Joe’s Pub and many more. She is a soloist on Grammy Award-winning Calling All Dawns, and been in residence at Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Hedgebrook, MASS MOCA, and Ryder Farm.

Kalaisan Kalaichelvan | Music Director | Musician Collaborator
Kalaisan Kalaichelvan is a composer and classically trained pianist based in Toronto, Canada. His compositional practice spans multiple disciplines, drawing from film, dance, theatre, installation and deals with themes of translation and transference. Kalaisan’s music is defined by its genre-bending boldness, its refined classicism and musical ingenuity. Having worked across various disciplines and communities of thought, Kalaisan seeks to bring together incongruous institutions to build novel structures that reflect his artistic upbringing.

Lalli Venkat | Dance Collaborator
Lalli Venkat has studied Bharatanatyam under Smt. Jayanthi Sridhar, disciple of Guru Adyar K. Lakshman. Most recently, she performed in the local production of Mudivil Oru Aarambam by Chennai dancers Shyamjith and Viraja Kiran as well as The Affair by Sri Thina Subramaniam. Her choreography has been showcased at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival (By Natya @ Berkeley, 2017) and ODC’s Pushfest (2016, 2017). Most recently she was an artist-in-residence at Safehouse Arts SF. She has been performing with Nava Dance since 2016. 

Aishwarya Subramanian | Dance Collaborator
Aishwarya Subramanian is an interdisciplinary artist based in the Bay Area. Having trained in Bharatanatyam at the Jayamangala School of Music and Dance under her mother-guru Shobha Subramanian, she has participated in dance workshops with gurus, such as Maneesha Sathe, Narendra and Anusha Kumar, The Dhananjayans, Priyadarshini Govind, Late M.V. Narasimhachari, The Kirans, M. Venkata Krishnan, Divya Nayar, and N. Srikanth. As Artistic Director of Jayamangala, she has taught, performed, and presented Bharatanatyam at various events, festivals, and conferences around the world. In addition to her artistic pursuits, Aishwarya is a practicing expressive arts therapist and has been with Nava Dance Theatre since 2018.

Janani Muthaiya | Dance Collaborator
Janani Muthaiya Janani Muthaiya began her Bharatanatyam tutelage with Guru Viji Prakash and the Shakti School of Bharatanatyam at the age of 11 and has performed with the Shakti Dance Company in many events and festivals around the world. She’s also choreographed group performances for various venues including the Davis Dheem Tana Showcase and the Festival of Chariots. She joined Nava Dance Theatre in 2019.

Abirami Murugappan | Company Dancer
Abirami Murugappan has been learning at the Sankalpa School of Dance under Nirupama Vaidyanathan since the age of 5, and performed her arangetram in 2012. Since then, she’s been part of several Sankalpa productions. She was also part of Natya at UC Berkeley, a collegiate Bharathanatyam team, had the chance to compete nationally with them.

Aarthi Ramesh | Company Dancer
Aarthi began learning bharatnatyam in Muscat with Smt. Padmini Krishnamurthy and did her arangetram with Smt. Revathi Ramachandran when she moved to India. She continued to learn and perform in productions with Smt. Srekala Bharath while in India and with Smt. Hema Rajagopalan after moving to US. She joined Nava in 2023.

Aarti Shankar | Musician Collaborator | Violin
Aarti Shankar is a renowned Carnatic violinist who is based in Austin. She is currently training under Lalgudi GJR Krishnan, son and disciple of legendary violinist Padmabhushan Lalgudi G Jayaraman. She has been performing solo and accompaniment concerts across India and North America and has had the fortune to accompany eminent vocalists like Bombay Jayashri. Aarti has also trained in Western violin, has served as a vocal instructor at the Shankar Mahadevan Academy of music, and teaches violin to dedicated students across the US. She holds a degree in MSc. Neuroscience from the University of Calgary in Canada.

Conal Sathi | Musician Collaborator | Keyboard
Conal is passionate about fusing Indian traditional music with Western and contemporary styles. From the age of 5, Conal studied Hindustani classical music from the sons of the legendary "King of Ghazal" Mehdi Hassan. He continued to develop his musical talent as the musical director of the Stanford a cappella group, Raagapella. He has performed all over the US as well as India and shared the stage with A.R. Rahman, Mehdi Hassan, Abhijit Pohankar, Padma Shri Penaz Masani, and grammy award winner Tanvi Shah. He performs frequently with his ensemble Raga and Blues where they fuse jazz and Indian classical music with ghazal, qawwali and contemporary music. 

Aditya Iswara | Musician Collaborator | Mridangam
Aditya is trained in Mridangam, Carnatic Music and Bharatanatyam with an abundant sense of rhythm. He is a disciple of Sri Poovalur Sriji, for Mridangam and Kanjira, Sri Vittal Ramamurthy for Carnatic Violin, and a disciple of his mother, Smt. Vani Iswara for Bharatanatyam. Aditya has been a regular performer as an accompanist for both music and dance across the country. He graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelors and a Masters in Computer Science and is working as a software engineer at a silicon valley startup company.

Matt Small | Musician Collaborator | Bass
Hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a gifted San Francisco bassist and composer whose alluringly original music draws on a rich range of classical, jazz and indigenous music,” Matt Small has performed at, and had his music presented by, Carnegie Hall, SF Jazz, Tanglewood Music Center, National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing, China), Kala Mandir (Calcutta, India), Harvard University Sanders Theatre, Banff Centre (Canada), Joe’s Pub (NYC), The Stone (NYC), Angel City Jazz Fest (LA), and has performed with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, Sandeep Das’ HUM Ensemble, Zeena Parkins, ROVA, Vinny Golia, among many others.

Maya-Rau Murthy | Musician Collaborator | Nattuvangam
Maya is a Konnakol artist, rapper, Bharatanatyam dancer, mridangist, composer, performer, choreographer, curator based in NY and California. She co-directs Natya Anubhava Dance Academy with her mother Dr. Nalini. She has performed widely nationally and internationally as have her compositions and choreographies, including in Seva Sadan, National Gallery of Art, United Nations, Drive East, SafeHouseArts, NYC Hall, Jewish Museum, Hammond Museum, Javits Center, Smith Center, Stanford, and with Akshara Music Ensemble. She also enjoys doing rhythmic composition for productions by other directors (i.e. Surabhi Bharadwaj’s “Finding Joy”). She co-organizes and curates Chitkala, promoting Indian Classical musicians, with Ashwini Srivatasan.

Surabhi Bharadwaj | Light Designer
Surabhi Bharadwaj, Artistic Director of Siddhi Creative and Siddhi Dance Academy, Dublin, California, is a seasoned Bharatanatyam dancer, trained under eminent Gurus in India including - Sri. K. M. Raman, Smt. Radha Sridhar, Guru B. Bhanumati, and Mavin Khoo. Surabhi has an MFA in Dance: Design and Production from Saint Mary’s College of California and an MFA in Bharatanatyam from Sastra University, India under the mentorship of Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam.

Purna Venugopalan | Programs/Production Manager
Purna Venugopalan is a NYC based photographer and arts administrator. After spending years in India working in a variety of creative and artistic fields, she developed an interest in uplifting and supporting South Asian diasporic artists, as well as facilitating and creating spaces for dialogues between the diaspora. Currently she works for Nava Dance Theatre and Brooklyn Raga Massive in various administrative and creative capacities.