Day 1: Art Share 2023 Program

Carlito Catalano

Nassau, Bahamas

Carlito Catalano is an Odissi dancer from The Bahamas. He began learning as a teenager by watching videos of various dancers on the internet. After attending a workshop in Atlanta with Bijayini Satpathy in 2019, he began attending virtual classes with Satpathy when she offered online classes in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Carlito holds a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and also enjoys baking and music.

Laksha Dantran

San Francisco, USA

Laksha Dantran is an Indian classical Dance artist with an experience of over 30 years. She is a trans woman and formerly was known by the name PR Rajesh.

Rajesh used to be very passionate about her self-taught dancing to movie songs, drawing, and making small handicraft items which won a lot of attention and appreciation and even merit certificates. At the age of 13, her father’s encouragement led her to join Smt. Kalamandalam Sumathy who was her first guru for Bharatanatyam, Mohiniyattam, Kuchipudi, and folk dance.

As a winner of two prestigious awards 3Arts for performing arts, and the Spark micro-grant award for visual arts, currently Laksha is an emerging trans artist in the Bay Area. She feels that her visual art skills and performing art skills are the two eyes that lit her way as a transwoman artist upholding gender neutrality in art."

Arpita Gaidhane

Banglore, India

I am an artist, facilitator and social change-maker from Bangalore, India. I cultivate safe spaces for people to come together with shared values, guidelines and agreements. I offer embodiment support for people undergoing grief, trauma or confusion. I also offer Art Ceremony to support people to sublimate their emotions through Art.

As a child, I studied bharatanatyam, and as adult I trained with Parvathy Baul for a number of years in Baul. I also had the pleasure to learn from other Baul Masters - Kanai Das Baul, Deb Das Baul, Lakshman Das Baul, Mansoor Fakir and others.

My performance, 'Why I am a feminist', interweaving movements with narratives of female ancestors who underwent child widowhood, divorce, dowry death, domestic abuse and repression on the professional front was presented at InterPlayce, Oakland and Sumana Sangama, Dharwad in 2014.

I have deepened my practice of engaging with movement for body wisdom and healing through immersions with Belly Dance, Interplay, the Resilience Toolkit, Center for Mind-Body Medicine, A Course on the Imaginal and Pranic Healing. This is enhanced by my facilitation experience and training with YES! Jams, the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, the Changemakers Lab at World Pulse and Starling Collective by Giving Tuesday. I have also received a lot of support and wisdom through Peer Support Space, Florida and therapy with Continuum Practices, CBT, Internal Family systems and other somatic and art based modalities.

Sangram Mukhopadhyay

Kolkata, India

I am an independent and emerging dancer/movement practitioner. Coming from a background of non-institutional methodology of experiential learning, Waacking/Whacking(a 70s Los Angeles Gay club style) comes closest to describing the movement vocabulary I use. This is to navigate the intersection of gender and contemporary life. This ability to contextualize the form as per my socio-political location has allowed me to take it to the proscenium in the capacity of a performer and choreographer.

Funders

Unrehearsed Artist Residency is created by Nava Dance Theatre, and is a part of the Unrehearsed Activism program, supported by the California Arts Council Impact Grant, San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Family Foundation and individual donors. Consider donating to keep this program going! All donations are tax deductible in the US.

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

Special thanks

We would like to thank those who supported this work through community engagement programs, being present for work-in-progress sharings, having 1:1 conversations with many artists, and advising on the direction of this program. We would like to especially thank ALL the artists in this years URP cohort, for being so open to process over product and really digging deep into their work.

URP Leadership

Program Director: Tanu Sreedharan

Programs Manager: Purna Venugopalan