Program
Land Acknowledgement
Welcome (Anne Huang and Nadhi Thekkek)
Premiere #1: Allowing Joy
Elders Story Circle
Naomi Diouf (Diamano Coura West African Dance Company) and Carlos Moreno (Ballet Folklorico Mexicano)
Co-facilitated by Nadhi Thekkek and Anne Huang
Audience Q&A
PREMIERE #2: Foreign Bodies (Work)
FaciliTators and Speakers
Dr. Anne Huang (she/her) is a seasoned arts executive, and a highly regarded, culturally specific capacity building consultant and resource equity advocate. In 2019. Anne was appointed the first person of color, immigrant and San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival artist to lead World Arts West. Under Anne's equity and inclusion focus, World Arts Arts embarked on a new horizon. For the first time since 1978, World Arts West board and staff are now majority BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and reflect the diversity of its artist community. By centering the voices of cultural artists, Anne works to empower everyone to make and present revolutionary new artworks, and uplift underrepresented voices and stories.
Anne is the former Executive Director of Oakland Asian Cultural Center (OACC), where she transformed OACC from a struggling arts organization into a leading cultural institution serving 50,000 people per year. Anne led the OACC in large-scale innovative partnerships, including with StoryCorps, Stern Grove, Independent Television Service, and 100 Families: Art and Social Change with California College of Arts, Center for Art and Public Life. OACC’s partnership with KALW and StoryCorps produced the first and only full-length audio documentary about the history of Oakland Chinatown.
As a thought leader with deep knowledge of challenges and solutions for cultural artists in the 21st century, Anne is a sought-after speaker and consultant for conference panels, cultural convenings, and resource equity in philanthropy. Anne has served in leadership roles for National Dance Project’s Regional Dance Development Initiative, New York Foundation for the Arts’ Immigrant Artist Program, and the City of Oakland’s Mayoral Arts Task Force. She is the Board Chair of Dance/USA Board of Trustees.
Nadhi Thekkek is the Artistic Director of Nava Dance Theatre, a bharatanatyam dance company based in San Francisco, California (USA). She operates on the belief that bharatanatyam is a modern medium with potential to push boundaries of how we can use culturally-specific art forms to understand place, identity, and politics. Her choreography has been supported through: National Endowment for the Arts, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Dancers’ Group, California Arts Council, CounterPulse, East Bay Community Foundation and others.
Past work includes: “Broken Seeds Still Grow,” created and directed by Nadhi and visual artist Rupy C. Tut, was an exploration of their ancestry and an examination of cultural othering during the 1947 Partition of British India; “Unfiltered,” a bharatanatyam work exploring the #metoo movement in collaboration with Rasika Kumar and Sahasra Sambamoorthi; “Hamsa,” a bharatanatyam and ballet collaboration with Graham Lustig, Artistic Director of the Oakland Ballet; and “Passage” a bharatanatyam and modern dance exploration choreographed on Randee Paufve and Shruti Abhishek. Some of Nadhi’s artist initiatives through Nava Dance Theatre include the Unrehearsed (Virtual) Artist Residency Program, directed by Tanu Sreedharan. She also serves on the board of the Western Arts Alliance and co-chairs the WAA Hyphen + Asian Affinity Group.
Nadhi Thekkek learned from Guru Smt. Sundara Swaminathan (Kala Vandana Dance Company, San Jose, CA) and Guru Smt. Padmini Chari (Nritya School of Dance, Houston, TX). Since 2012, she has continued training under Guru Sri. A. Lakshmanaswamy (Chennai, India).
Naomi Gedo Diouf, Cultural Bearer, Historian, Facilitator and Instructor, is the Artistic Director of Diamano Coura West African Dance Company. Naomi Gedo Diouf grew up in Liberia and began dancing at age of six. Since coming to the U.S. in 1972, she has had a profound impact in the Bay Area, nationally, and internationally. She has created numerous acclaimed traditional and innovative choreographies for Diamano Coura, and was commissioned to assist and choreograph for many companies including the Dutch Theater Van Oosten in the Netherlands and Belgium. In 1998 and 1999, she became consultant for the San Francisco Ballet to choreograph for “Lambarena,” an African and classical ballet fusion piece, which was also performed by Pacific Northwest Ballet, Ballet of Florida, the Singapore and South African Ballets. Ms. Diouf served as guest lecturer at many venues and was awarded several honors in Holland, South Africa, Singapore and the United States. She has a Master Degree in Organization Management with emphasis on change management, and holds a California Teaching Credential. As an African immigrant woman, Mama Naomi, as she is known, has shown extraordinary leadership in a field predominately led by men. She has taken on difficult topics such as a transnational look at violence and community, juxtaposing the violence of child soldiers back in her native Liberia, with the violence youth face in Oakland. She has trained hundreds of dancers and taught thousands of students, holding the highest artistic and technical standards and rigor. She created a forum for immigrant artists with her Collages des Culture Africaines now in its 27th year.
A strong advocate of Arts-in-Education, Mrs. Diouf has worked with the Arts in Education programs in the San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, and Alameda School Districts to promote cultural literacy. She was named one of America’s top teachers in Who’s Who Amongst American Teachers and has received numerous awards and recognition. After 28 years, she recently retired from teaching West African dance and culture at Berkeley High School. She is also now retired from teaching at Laney College, and continues to teach at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts in Oakland where she has for the past 30 years. In addition to being an educator, she also consults and conducts workshops in costume design, cultural events/program coordination, and West African culture. Mrs. Diouf, over the years, has received many awards, recognitions and grants. In July 8, 2018 she received the Malonga Casquelourd Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival; in May 2019 was awarded a Dance/USA Fellowship to Artists; and in 2020 was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts and National Council for Traditional Arts.
Carlos Moreno-Samaniego learned about the performing arts at an early age. His father Marcos Moreno directed and performed in a group that presented ceremonial dances throughout the region of Nazas, Durango, Mexico; while his mother designed the costumes, sets, and props for these performances. His formal dance instruction began at the age of 7, at age 11 he enrolled in a government-sponsored dance and culture program. During his five years of training in the program, he performed with a local dance company that presented shows in schools throughout the Nazas region. After completing high school, Mr. Moreno’s artistic ambitions led him to study folkloric dance in Guadalajara, under the instruction of Maestro Rafael Zamarripa. There after he continued his dance education with the renowned Ballet Folklorico de Mexico de Amalia Hernandez’ dance school.
With the aspiration to explore new environments and venues to continue to express his theatrical dreams and talents, in 1958 at the age of 18, he emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area. There he met his wife Angelina, who later became the costume designer for the Ballet Folklorico Mexicano, the company Mr. Moreno founded in 1967. Carlos Moreno’s unrelenting passion for researching, teaching, and performing the traditional dances of Mexico have made him an accomplished producer of folklorico shows and a distinguished authority in Mexican dance and culture. For this reason, he and the Ballet Folklorico Mexicano receive frequent requests from theaters, cultural centers, and educational institutions in both the United States and Mexico to present performances and to offer master classes and lecture demonstrations for youth and adults.
Artist Collaborators
Shruti Abhishek is a Bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer and teacher. She is the founder and artistic director of Kshetram - a holistic dance institution based in Pleasanton and Livermore, California. Shruti has a bachelor's degree in Performing Arts from Nalanda Nritya Kala Mahavidyalaya, Mumbai, India. She trains with Guru Shri Vaibhav Arekar in Mumbai, India. Her formative years were spent learning dance with Guru Smt. Rohini M Singhi in Mumbai. Shruti had the opportunity to perform at several prestigious festivals in India and Europe with Vaibhav Arekar’s Sankhya Dance Company and in the US with Nava Dance Theatre. While working on other creative collaborations, Shruti co-curates two festivals: ‘Varnam Salon’ which is a series of performances by California-based artists and ‘When Eyes Speak’ the first Indian choreography festival in San Francisco. Shruti has been a part of Nava Dance Theatre since 2016.
Lalli Venkat Lalli Venkat has studied bharatanatyam under Smt. Jayanthi Sridhar, disciple of Guru Adyar K. Lakshman. She has performed at various venues across the U.S. She has been performing with Nava Dance since 2016.
Priyanka Raghuraman is a senior performer & faculty member of Anitha Guha's Bharathanjali and a company dancer at Nava Dance Theatre, SF. She currently teaches in the Bay Area - USA through her teaching practice 'Priyada Arts'. She started learning Bharatanatyam from her mother, Smt. Kamala Raghuraman at the age of 4 and later came under the tutelage of Guru Kalaimamani Smt. Anitha Guha. As a professional soloist and graded artist with Doordarshan(India), she has toured and performed at prestigious venues across the country, the USA, and Singapore. Priyanka has also worked as a professional Television Anchor and Theater Actor, hosting over 100 shows and acting in plays staged for the prestigious National School of Drama (India). As a choreographer, she has created pieces that have garnered positive reviews and accolades. She has had the honor of receiving the 'The Meritorious Performer Award' from Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha (2020), 'Yuva Kala Kovida' from Kalasangha-USA (2019), and the 'Periya Sharadha Endowment' award from Sri Krishna Gana Sabha (2016) for her solo performances and was featured as a promising artist of this generation in a review of her recital which appeared in 'The Hindu'- an acclaimed Indian newspaper. During the pandemic, she has been actively performing through digital platforms and was recently asked to speak in a podcast on Spotify for 'The Hindu Business Line - Stage Business'. She has also answered a VIP questionnaire session on 'Quora Tamil'. Last year, she played key roles in a Dance Film, ‘Mahabharata’ by Navatman. Another acclaimed work that she was a part of, was Ganesh Vasudeva's ‘Life of Pi’ in which her portrayal was commended by a respected art critic, Ms. Marina Harss of the New Yorker. She is also a professional Chef with certification from the state of California and a makeup artist.
Janani Muthaiya Janani Muthaiya began her Bharatanatyam tutelage with Guru Viji Prakash and the Shakti School of Bharatanatyam at the age of 11 and has performed with the Shakti Dance Company in many events and festivals around the world. She’s also choreographed group performances for various venues including the Davis Dheem Tana Showcase and the Festival of Chariots. She joined Nava Dance Theatre in 2019.
Vaishnavi Rajagopalan is a dancer, choreographer and performer of Bharatanatyam. She has trained under several gurus over the last twenty years, most recently under Dr. Revathi Anand Kumar, and actively performs as a soloist and in productions in the US and India. Her love for dance as an evocative medium has inspired her to create events proliferating an appreciation for the classical arts. Also training in Kathak under Barkha Patel and studying the Karanas of the Natya Shastra under Ashwini Srivatsan, her passion and energy towards the performing arts have been the driving forces that enable her to delve deeper into the essence of these forms as a communicative and emotive medium.
Sanjana Melkote has been learning Bharatanatyam for the last 14 years from her guru Smt. Suganda Iyer of Jayendra Kalakendra and continues to learn at the Upadhye School of Dance. She is a dancer at Nava Dance Theater and junior captain for Natya at Berkeley. She is passionate about choreography and co-founded Fuchsia Dance, a platform for dancers to collaborate and innovate. She is a third year student studying Computer Science and Journalism at UC Berkeley and also learns Carnatic Vocal from Smt. Jayashree Varadarajan.
Aishwarya Subramanian is an interdisciplinary artist based in the Bay Area. Having trained in Bharatanatyam at the Jayamangala School of Music and Dance under her mother-guru Shobha Subramanian, she has participated in dance workshops with gurus, such as Maneesha Sathe, Narendra and Anusha Kumar, The Dhananjayans, Priyadarshini Govind, Late M.V. Narasimhachari, The Kirans, M. Venkata Krishnan, Divya Nayar, and N. Srikanth. As Artistic Director of Jayamangala, she has taught, performed, and presented Bharatanatyam at various events, festivals, and conferences around the world. In addition to her artistic pursuits, Aishwarya is a practicing expressive arts therapist and has been with Nava Dance Theatre since 2018.
Sruti Sarathy (website: www.srutisarathy.com; Instagram: www.instagram.com/sruti.sarathy) is a versatile Carnatic (South Indian classical) violinist, singer, and composer based in the Bay Area and Chennai. Sruti's music brings out the voice of the Indian violin in a contemporary and imaginative way. Her original music uses the Carnatic sound to explore diverse South Asian identities and diasporic history. Sruti often takes the role of composer-performer for dance and theater works, and has composed scores for short films. She has received accolades in India and the United States for her artistry, including awards from the Madras Music Academy. A graduate of Stanford University, Sruti is the recipient of several grants from organizations including Fulbright, the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, and most recently, the Creative Work Fund.
Kalaisan Kalaichelvan is a Toronto based pianist, composer, orchestrator and music producer. His music has been described as “haunting” (IndyRed.com) and “work of emotional honesty that is simply exceptional” (The Independent Critic). Having completed his ARCT diploma with the Royal Conservatory of Music and Music Composition, Kalaisan’s work has been performed by various ensembles such as the Wellington String Quartet and the McMaster Chamber Orchestra across mediums of film, theatre and dance. His compositions have been recognized for “Best Music” at the Santorini Film Festival and the Largo Film Awards and has been presented in celebrated art festivals such as Nuit Blanche TO. Kalaisan is also excited to be serving as one of the composers-in-residence for the Canadian Film Centre in 2021. Having worked across various disciplines and communities of thought, he seeks to bring together incongruous institutions to build novel structures that reflect his artistic upbringing.
Aditya Ganesh hails from a family of musicians and dancers and started learning mridangam from Sri N Narayan at the age of 7. Since 2008, he has been continuing his advanced training under the tutelage of Sri K R Ganesh, son of the legendary Mridangam vidwan Sri M. Rajappa Iyer. With his grandmother, Kalaimamani Smt. Ranganayaki Jayaraman, and mother, Smt Indumathy Ganesh, running their own Bharathanatyam Dance Schools, Aditya developed a strong passion and knowledge in Carnatic music and dance at an early age. He has most recently performed in Chennai's Margazhi Utsavam in Decemeber 2014 and he actively accompanies on the mridangam for both music and dance performances in California, while studying Electrical Engineering at UCLA.
David Gaylord is a photographer, cinematographer, and designer. He studied photography and design at Pacific Lutheran University. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking at California State University Long Beach in 1987. He has multiple certificates in design. He has completed over 2000 pieces of creative work in the last 35 years and his art and photography is included in hundreds of collections throughout the world. Important themes David is interested in include: Mental health, patriarchy/sexism, racism, body image, abortion rights, environment, disabled justice, climate/energy, LGBT+ rights, immigration rights, income inequality, education, and homelessness.
Natalia M. Roberts is trained in architecture, anthropology, and scientific illustration, and came to the world of dance with a keen eye for design and a desire for storytelling. Natalia works in the space where movement and the lens meet — telling short stories of joy, loss, connection, and our collective humanity. (More here.)
Producers
World Arts West is a regional presenting and artist service organization that supports Northern California artists and dance companies who sustain the world’s dance and music traditions. World Arts West supports over 450 dance companies that engage 20,000 artists, sustaining over 100 unique cultures from around the world. In the last four decades, World Arts West’s constituency has grown from a grassroots community of cultural artists to the largest world dance network in the United States.World Arts West’s long-term vision is to build a sustainable future for the world dance community by being the national thought leader, presenter, advocate, and service provider for the largest world dance network in the United States. World Arts West aims to work with artists, organizations, and communities to increase cultural competence and understanding as a foundational base for social justice.
Nava Dance Theatre is a bharatanatyam dance company in San Francisco, which uses the south Indian dance form to navigate place, identity, and politics through the lens of lived experience.
Funders
Migrations is commissioned by Zellerbach Family Foundation and is a part of the Rogue Gestures program, supported by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.
Special Thanks
Special thanks to Kamala Devam (London) for continued choreographic feedback for the second film.
Additional thanks to Dr. Sheba George for her project guidance and the 6 anonymous Malayalee women who shared their immigration and labor stories through our ongoing oral history project, as well as Samip Mallick and the South Asian American Digital Archive, who will be archiving these stories for future generations.
And to our teachers, peers, and close community of art makers who continue to influence, affirm, and provide critical feedback when necessary.