Performances
I am a performer, trained in the Indian Classical dance form, Kathak, with over a decade of experience and a Diploma degree. When I came to the Rhode Island School Design, I co-founded the School’s first Performance Art Association (PAA) in 2023, to bring together a community of performers and theatre practitioners. At PAA we hosted monthly sessions for sharing practice, embodiment exercises, theatre techniques, brainstorm performances, and more. In 2023, I directed a performance titled, Body-Place-Move (still above).
Body-Place-Move is a public performance directed by Chhavi Jain at India Point Park, a historic site and the first port of Providence that is used as a public park. In acknowledgement of the history of this location, of both forced and willing migrations of peoples and trans-Atlantic slave trade, this performance intervention in public space engages with memories of objects and life-forms in the park, most of which precedes our existence. The participants from RISD’s Performance Art Association participates in immersive action. Drawing from the concept of ‘Ecoperformance’, coined by Maura Baiocchi, where the environment and humans are alike players in a performance, performers observed an object of their choice and imagined its historical context: how it got there, what has it seen, and what relationship does it share with its surroundings? In the process of embodying object memory, the performers’ own memories and connections surfaced in unexpected ways and activated questions, sensitivities, and reception in the bodies. Individual choreographies were self-determined, organic, exploratory and responsive.
Kathak dance performance | [Exhibition] Malhar: A lyrical exposition