Odissi Fast-Forward

Choreographic Development Programme

for Odissi Dancers

Background

Odissi practitioners in the UK have rare, if no opportunity, to develop as creative and multifaceted artists. This is due to lack of senior professional dancers and companies who have already pushed the boundaries of the form and carved a space for it in the British mainstream dance scene, as it is the case with the most established forms of bharatanatyam and kathak. The practice and performance of odissi continues to cling on ideas of classicism and tradition, with little opportunities for practitioners to engage in and share their creative endeavors. This is further intensified by the fact that most practitioners continue to train in India with artists who are not necessarily aware of the specificity of British audience and aesthetic values characterising dance in this country.

Who are we and what we want to do

We are a collective of Odissi dancers who are committed to develop our choreographic practice, through collaboration and experimentation. We draw on the methodology developed by ReRooted Dance Collective, some of us are also part of, to ignite creativity and allow our choreographic voice and practice to emerge and evolve. This methodology consists of using peer-mentoring, co-working and peer-collaboration to explore choreographic ideas and develop creative tasks. ReRooted has been very successful and has been defined as an avant-guarde collective, proposing a unique way of working in South Asian dance that defies hierarchy and brings rigorous and inquisitive creativity at the forefront.

We believe that more odissi dancers will benefit from this process and we propose a programme specifically addressed to artists specialised in this dance style.

The programme will cover 6 months (Feb-Jul 2020). It will consists of:

• OFF ChoreoLabs: open to all advanced odissi dancers who are interested in developing their creative and choreographic practice.

• OFF Experimental Week: creative collaboration between 5 odissi dancers and 5 artists working with another artistic medium.

• OFF Sharing: June-July 2020 (exact date TBC)

• OFF Peer-Mentoring Network: ongoing.

OFF ChoreoLabs

There will be 8-10 OFF ChoreoLabs between February and July 2020, open to all advanced odissi dancers. The first four ChoreoLabs will take place on:

9 - 16 February 3-5pm (Dance Attic, 368 North End Rd, Fulham, London SW6 1LY)

8 - 15 March 3-5pm (Kingston University Dance)

Five more ChoreoLabs will be organized in May-June, on Sundays afternoons.

Sessions are based on skill-sharing and peer-learning. Each session will be led by 1 or 2 members of the OFF collective. All participants will be encouraged to bring a task to explore during the session. There will be time for sharing, group discussion and individual journaling.

The session leader will be in charge of facilitating warm up, choreolab, peer-mentoring and discussion. Sessions will have a structure, while allowing time for unforeseen ideas to be taken on board and explored.

Artists can bring to the group and explore: - Creative tasks

- Choreographic ideas

- Ways of working creatively

Tasks can be explored individually or involve the use of other members, to experiment with ideas of dance composition and interaction between different dancers.

Suggested contribution towards studio hire fee: £5.

OFF Experimental Week

Creative Collaboration: In April artists of the collective will develop a proposal for an experimental collaboration with an artist working in a different medium. The proposal will address a specific aspect of creative practice that the artist wants to explore. The collaborator will be an artist from a different discipline, such as: poet, video artist, lighting designer, electronic music artist, photographer or painter.

Five proposals will be selected. Deadline for Proposals: 15th April 2020

Bursary: The selected artists will receive a bursary of £500 + £500 for their collaborator to spend a week- worth of creative research between May – June (either intensive or spread as convenient to the artists involved).

Output: The goal of this collaboration is to push the boundaries of the form and of traditional ways of working and to ignite experimentation and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Artists will be encouraged to apply for further funding if required by their own project and will commit to create an 8’-worth material in the form of a performance or exhibition or video or similar creative output.

OFF Sharing

While the main goal is not to create a finished product, the artists involved will commit to producing material which will then be shared in a semi-formal scratch event in July accompanied by a discussion of the process (exact venue and date TBC, but likely to be first week of July).

We envisage the output of this process to be multi-modal, potentially including elements of live performance, exhibition and screening. On the same day, we are planning a scholarly seminar focusing on issues of dance, creativity, pedagogy, urban architecture and democracy (subject to Funding).

In July, the collective will meet for an evaluation session and discussion of future plans and grants applications. We envisage this process to create the conditions for more new solo and group work stemming from the odissi form but reaching out towards new creative ventures.

OFF Peer Network

Dancers of the OFF collective will have the opportunity to be part of OFF peer network, whose goal is to provide a venue where artists can support each other through skill-sharing and peer-mentoring, by acting as both mentors and mentees.

CREDITS

This project has been envisioned by Bhumi Dance Academy to support the development of odissi dance in the UK. A particular thanks goes to ReRooted Dance Collective members for initiating the practice of skill-sharing and peer-mentoring and for being a source of inspiration.

This project is possible through the support of Arts Council of England, Grants for the Arts and the mentorship of Beeja, Akademi and Kadam.