Rogue Gestures is a multipart video series that questions what it means to stay inside the lines. More details to come. 🌱

On March 31, we premiere “Interference” a piece processing unrealistic expectations of women and the grim reality that follows, and “Passage,” a documentary short describing process when it comes to collaboration across disciplines.

Screenings will be followed by a conversation with the artists.

Interference

Concept and Choreography Nadhi Thekkek

Dancers: Nadhi Thekkek, Lalli Venkat, Vertika Srivastava

Music by Ananya Ashok

Video by David Gaylord

Rehearsal Direction by Shruti Abhishek

Passage

Concept by Nadhi Thekkek

With Interviews by Nadhi Thekkek and Randee Paufve

Dancers: Shruti Abhishek, Randee Paufve, Nadhi Thekkek

Music by Chris Evans and Conal Sathi

Video by Sergio Carrasco

Additional Details:

*Zoom link will be emailed to registrants on the day of the event or you can access through your eventbrite account

Tickets are PWYC, with no one turned away for lack of funds.

Suggested price: $10-$50

Artists:

Nadhi Thekkek is the Artistic Director of Nava Dance Theatre, a bharatanatyam dance company based in San Francisco. She operates on the belief that bharatanatyam, while culturally-specific, is a modern medium with potential to push boundaries of how we can use traditional art forms to understand place, identity, and politics.

Shruti Abhishek is a Bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer and teacher. She is the founder and artistic director of Kshetram - a holistic dance institution based in Pleasanton and Livermore, California.

Shruti has a bachelor's degree in Performing Arts from Nalanda Nritya Kala Mahavidyalaya, Mumbai, India. She trains with Guru Shri Vaibhav Arekar in Mumbai, India. Her formative years were spent learning dance with Guru Smt. Rohini M Singhi in Mumbai. Shruti had the opportunity to perform at several prestigious festivals in India and Europe with Vaibhav Arekar’s Sankhya Dance Company and in the US with Nava Dance Theatre. While working on other creative collaborations, Shruti co-curates two festivals: ‘Varnam Salon’ which is a series of performances by California-based artists and ‘When Eyes Speak’ the first Indian choreography festival in San Francisco. Shruti has been a part of Nava Dance Theatre since 2016.

Randee Paufve is the artistic director of Paufve Dance, a contemporary dance organization based on the San Francisco Bay Area.  She recently returned from South India where she conducted dance research supported by a 2019-2020 Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar Grant. She has been a featured artist on NPR’s All Things Considered, and was named in San Francisco Magazine’s 2018  “100 Artists Putting the East Bay On The Map.” She received the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Individual Performance, the Della Davidson Prize for Innovations in Dance Theater, and a 2016 Theater Bay Area award nomination for her work with San Francisco’s Cutting Ball Theater. A two-time recipient of the E.E. Ford award for dance research in Europe, Randee’s choreography has also been supported by residencies at Ucross Foundation, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and Red Cinder Creativity Center. From 2010-2020 Paufve Dance was Company-in-Residence at Berkeley’s Shawl-Anderson Dance Center. 

Vertika Srivastava began studying bharatanatyam under Prema Sondor and now trains under Viraja Mandhre and Shyamjith Kiran. She has performed around the country with different ensembles—including Nava Dance Theatre since 2014—and in San Francisco as a soloist/choreographer, most recently, at ODC PUSHFest and SafeHouse Arts.

Lalli Venkat has studied bharatanatyam under Smt. Jayanthi Sridhar, disciple of Guru Adyar K. Lakshman. She has performed at various venues across the U.S. She has been performing with Nava Dance since 2016.