Choreographers Showcase Announced April 17 At The Chicago History Museum

Mandala South Asian Performing Arts, which connects audiences and students with the vibrancy, flavors, and colors of the performing arts traditions of South Asia, returns to the stage with a Choreographers Showcase of South Asian perspectives in contemporary dance. The performance takes place Sunday, April 17 at 3 p.m. at the Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark Street, Chicago.

Choreographers Ashwaty Chennat, Mandala's associate artistic director, and Shalaka Kulkarni, Mandala's 2022 artist in residence, premiere excerpts from new works, drawing upon their experiences with solo dancemaking during the pandemic. This performance also features a musical interlude by tabla artist Krissy Bergmark.

Chennat's work Alight considers such questions as: Is it possible to find inspiration-just to live and be-without an understanding of what lies ahead? Without friendship and conversation? The artist can be seen as a metaphor for the process of existing: What do we draw from when we are utterly alone? . Using Zoom conversations, digital art creation, and various disjointed collaborations during the pandemic, Alight explores creation in isolation and where we can turn for grounding, comfort, and nourishment during challenges that we universally experience. Chennat collaborates with experimental sound artist PM Tummala to create a haunting score and dancers Misha Talapatra and Tuli Bera.

Ashwaty Chennat is an interdisciplinary performing artist based in Chicago and associate artistic director of Mandala. With a foundation in Bharatanatyam dance, she draws from her experience and training in dance, music, and theatre to develop and evolve her practice. With Mandala Arts, she has directed and choreographed works throughout the Midwest. Highlights include Firebird Suite at Chicago Symphony Center, Masks and Myths at the Logan Center for the Arts, and the annual Mandala Makers Festival. She has developed new work with support from the Ragdale Foundation, the City of Chicago, Pivot Arts, 3Arts, and Chicago Dancemakers Forum.

Kulkarni's as-yet-untitled work is a study between tradition and exploration. Based on the idea of myths in Indian culture, the work fuses two Indian Classical dance forms, Bharatanatyam and Kathak, with other movement forms, text, and technology. The work takes the viewer through an absurd day in the life of a reincarnated, mythical, female-identified goddess derived from Indian culture. Born as a human for a month in the year 2085, she meets her followers and explores realities and expectations for women through text, hybrid form of Indian Classical dance, and interactive technology.

Shalaka Kulkarni studied Bharatnatyam and Kathak in her native India. Her practice intersects Indian Classical dance with other forms, text, and technology. She is exploring female identity and erased narratives, in Western and Indian cultures, through dance. Her dancemaking aims to illuminate the undocumented history of Indian Classical dance forms she discerns in the broader Indian culture and share a personal experience of life in the Indian diaspora. She has performed her original work in India and in Chicago at Prop Thtr Chicago, Chicago Cultural Center, Rhinofest, Links Hall, and as part of the virtual Mandala Makers Festival. In addition to her residency with Mandala, she is a 2022 artist in residence with High Concept Labs.

Krissy Bergmark is a tabla player, percussionist, composer, and educator. She centers her creative work on bringing tabla to new genres and cross-genres through composition and performance with a grounded understanding of the traditions of the instrument. She has received commissions and grants through the Cedar Commissions, the Jerome Foundation, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and the Minnesota State Arts Board for her tabla studies and compositions for tabla, percussion, and strings. She composes and performs with her progressive folk trio Sprig of That, experimental duo Lo.mocean, and a variety of other artists in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Chicago, and New York. She is a teaching artist with Mandala.

Mandala Arts present a Choreographers Showcase
Sunday, April 17 at 3 p.m. at
the Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark Street.
Tickets are $25 and are available at
eventcombo.com/e/mandala-choreographer-showcase-45483.
All programming is subject to change.
Mandala South Asian Performing Arts

Mandala connects audiences and students with the vibrancy, flavors, and colors of the performing arts traditions of South Asia, offering powerful engagement with unique and expert dancers, musicians, storytellers, artists, and educators whose origins reach from the Himalayan ranges to the Indian Ocean, from Persia to Indonesia. Mandala's ensemble dancers and musicians, teaching artists, and artistic collaborators and outreach partners bring folk and classical traditions, as well as current and hybrid innovations, to life. Mandala promotes cultural awareness and exchange through entertainment and education.

Mandala South Asian Performing Arts is supported by The Richard Driehaus Foundation, the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelly Foundation, Chicago Community Trust, and the Illinois Arts Council Agency. Shalaka Kulkarni's residency is supported by the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

For more information, visit mandalaarts.org.

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