Soham presents Parijat Desai in culminating Artist-in-Residence program
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Anjal Chande
info@sohamdancespace.org
Soham Dance Space challenges tokenization and spotlights the multiplicity of South Asian American dance in pilot Artist-in-Residence program.
Celebrating inaugural dance artist Parijat Desai, Soham Dance Space experiments with new models for artist-presenter and artist-producer relationships.
Unceded land of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations, also known as CHICAGO, IL, (July 12, 2022) - Soham Dance Space, led by Artistic Director Anjal Chande, pilots its first-ever Artist-in-Residence program, to invest in the broader ecosystem of artists, amplify critical conversations, and implement artist-centered platforms of support. Thanks to a successful community fundraising campaign and support of Chicago Park District’s Night Out in the Parks, $12,800 in seed money has been raised to support deep, nuanced engagement, and the co-producing of public programs with the participating artist.
Artist-in-Residence Program: The Artist-in-Residence (A-i-R) program aims to uplift, complicate, and reframe South Asian dance in the diaspora. This 18-month program celebrates one experimental artist of the South Asian diaspora, fosters nuanced dialogue with the artist throughout the residency, and presents 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, motivations, and politics 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. The inability for arts ecosystem gatekeepers to grasp how artists may be departing from or paying homage to their roots, for example, undermines the artist, limits the potential for transformative connections with audiences, and reinforces outdated and often harmful conceptual boxes. Soham’s program disrupts prevalent paradigms and spotlights the multiplicity of South Asian contemporary practices.
Inaugural artist Parijat Desai, based on the Munsee Lenape peoples’ ancestral lands known as New York City, brings to Chicago communities her investigations around garba, healing, inclusivity, caste, and nationalism, which inform her development of a performance entitled How Do I Become We. Garba is a participatory circle dance form of India, which Parijat explores through her social practice project Dance In The Round (DITR). In September, Soham Dance Space and Chicago Park District’s Night Out in the Parks will co-present three lively DITR workshops that aim to harness the energy and spirit of the circle dance experience toward healing, inclusion, activation, and community. They are free to all and no prior dance experience or particular ability is required. Five Chicago dancers and musicians will be cast this summer as collaborating contributors to Parijat Desai’s artistic process to further the development of How Do I Become We and the three DITR events during her September in-person residency in Chicago.
In addition to the activations in the parks, Soham Dance Space will hold a public Transform | Affirm Kick-Off Convening, gathering artists, activists, curators, and presenters across the South Asian diaspora to reflect on experimentation amongst marginalized practitioners, what’s missing in the field, how we’re bridging the gap, and what keeps us excited and affirmed.
These upcoming public programs culminate a year of deep listening, dialogue, and exchange between peer artists/producers Anjal Chande and Parijat Desai to examine, question, and discover what kinds of presenting infrastructures can be built for South Asian artists who push outside narrow canons.
WHEN & WHERE & HOW MUCH
Transform | Affirm Kick-Off Convening
Tuesday, August 30, 2022 @7pm on Zoom
Free with registration.
“Dance In The Round” at Night Out in the Parks 10th Anniversary Season:
Saturday, September 10 @ 2pm in Indian Boundary Park, 2500 W Lunt AVE, Chicago, IL 60645
Saturday, September 17 @ 5:30pm in Washington Park, 5531 S King DR, Chicago, IL 60615
Sunday, September 18 @ 5:30pm in Julia de Burgos Park, 1805 N Albany AVE, Chicago, IL 60647
All are free and require no registration.
WHO:
Dance artist Parijat Desai creates hybrids of contemporary, Gujarati folk, Indian neoclassical dance and experimental theater. By building bridges across diverse forms and disciplines, Desai challenges the idea of cultural purity that lies under xenophobia and nationalism in the U.S. and India. As Artistic Director of Parijata Dance Company, she also leads Dance In The Round, sharing circle dances from Gujarat, India, and reframing these ancestral practices to be inclusive across age, ability, gender, and caste, and support community well-being and activation. As a member of the SAEDA (South Asian Experimental Dance Artists) collective, her design work with collaborator Dedalus Wainwright will appear in Kinetic Visualities, an exhibition at Wesleyan University this October. She has received commissions from Danspace Project, Harlem Stage, Grand Performances/LA, and the New York State Council for the Arts. Her work has been presented at: (New York City) La MaMa, Asia Society, Queens Museum, BRIC Arts Media; (Los Angeles) Skirball Cultural Center, California Plaza, The J. Paul Getty Center; (San Francisco) Asian Art Museum, ODC Theater; The Denver Art Museum; (Vancouver) The Dance Center (Chicago); and Mumbai at National Centre for the Performing Arts (Mumbai). She has won a NYFA BUILD grant, Lester Horton Dance Award for Individual Performance, Chhaya Arts and Activism Award, and a Fulbright Scholar Award. Her work has received support from the Mellon and Mertz Gilmore Foundations and Foundation for Contemporary Art. www.parijatdesai.org
Soham Dance Space fosters, realizes, and advances the artistic vision of Anjal Chande by supporting a home for creative practice, live performance, critical dialogue, and community gatherings. Founded in 2007 on the unceded land of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations, also known as Chicago, Soham is committed to ongoing examination of its privileged and marginalized positionality in all of the work it undertakes. Soham believes that artists reflect upon our humanity in indispensable ways. Soham believes creative exchange inspires our individual and collective transformation. Soham develops alternatives to hierarchical practices, and embodies anti-racist, anti-casteist, and anti-ableist values. Directed by Chande’s expansive vision for creative practice, Soham has evolved from an innovative bharatanatyam studio into a home for a broader ecosystem and community of practicing artists. www.sohamdancespace.org
“Dance In The Round” is presented as part of the Chicago Park District’s Night Out in the Parks series, supported by the Mayor’s Office and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Celebrating 10 years, the 2022 Night Out in the Parks program presents cultural events year-round in neighborhood parks throughout the city. The Chicago Park District in partnership with over 100 local artists and organizations, present engaging events and performances that enhance quality of life across Chicago and amplify the artistic and cultural vibrancy in every neighborhood. Through multiple disciplines, which include theater, music, movies, dance, site-specific work, nature programs, and community festivals, the series aims to support Chicago-based artists, facilitate community-based partnerships and programs, cultivate civic engagement, and ensure equity in access to the arts for all Chicagoans. www.nightoutintheparks.com
MORE INFO: High resolution images available here.
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