Nitya Nritya Foundation’s 10th Anniversary Festival: ROUGE GESTURES/FOREIGN BODIES, Nava Dance Theatre

During one of the most extensive weekends of events ever held in Salt Lake City focusing on Indian classical and contemporary dance and music, including Bharatanatyam repertoire (pronounced Bah-rah-the-na-tee-yum), Nitya Nritya Festival hosted Nava Dance Theatre from the Bay Area in an evening-length performance that was a tour de force showcase of the contemporary extensions of the Bharatanatyam movement language.

Directed by Nadhi Thekkek, Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies, with five dancers, offered tight synchronized precision in gestures, hand movements and rhythmic dance theater choreography that moves in complex uneven patterns. Holistically, these dance elements emphatically chronicled the historical experience of women who immigrated to new lands and experienced the joys and heartbreaks of securing their sense of belonging in foreign homes. The work is based on themes of collective strengths, originally inspired by the oral histories of Indian nurses who arrived as a result of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. 

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