Piloting Two New Programs

Soham Dance Space is excited to pilot two new programs in 2021! We value deep and nuanced artist-presenter and artist-producer relationships, and these two programs hope to explore and experiment with new models for supporting South Asian American and Black American dance artists.

PILOT PROGRAM 1

Soham Dance Space is launching a pilot Artist-in-Residence program that uplifts, complicates, and reframes South Asian dance in the diaspora. This program will celebrate one experimental artist of the South Asian diaspora, support deep engagement with the resident artist throughout 2021, and co-produce public programs that showcase the artist’s work. This initiative emerged from reflections on the absence of producers and presenters who are able to appreciate the wide range of aesthetics and motivations of South Asian American dance artists. Too often, artists face a degree of tokenization, a shallow, over-simplified engagement with their work, or an inability to foreground personal, idiosyncratic relationships with form and identity. We hope that this program disrupts prevalent paradigms and spotlights the multiplicity of our contemporary practices. 

PILOT PROGRAM 2

Soham Dance Space is launching a pilot Producing Partnership program that uplifts and amplifies Black voices and dreams in Chicago. Through a lens of solidarity, interconnectedness, equity, and reparations, Soham Dance Space aims to prioritize the needs of Black dance artists. We believe artists of color can come together to fight cultural hegemony and white supremacy, and, as a South Asian American-led organization, our position in American society calls on us to specifically commit to uplifting our fellow Black artists. We want to build on legacies of Black-Desi solidarity while also creating space for the distinct needs of our respective cultural discourse. We aim to support one Black-led project in 2021 as a co-producer and also begin an exploration, centering Black leadership, for how else to experiment with structuring such a program.