May 22, 28, 30, 31 and two shows on June 1.

Nadhi Thekkek collaborates with Graham Lustig, Artistic Director of the Oakland Ballet to create work that appeals to children and families, and includes live music arrangement by Ananya Ashok. Along with Nadhi, guest dancers include Surabhi Bharadwaj and Ganesh Vasudeva and company dancer Shelley Garg.

This year Nava Dance Theatre also presents a bharatanatyam work called Vastra, inspired by the popular folk tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes in collaboration with Manasa Suresh, Rohan Krishnamurthy, Divya Ramachandram, and Nyan Narasimhan. This work is created by Nadhi Thekkek and Shruti Abhishek with Nava dancer collaborators, Vertika Srivastava, Shelley Garg, Lalli Venkat, and Aishwarya Subramanian.

Nadhi also performs in Lustig’s production Jangala, as Messua, Mowgli’s human mother.

Exploring our shared struggle with displacement through dance and visual art

Created by Nadhi Thekkek and Rupy C. Tut, Broken Seeds (Still Grow)  is a bharatanatyam dance and visual art production inspired by the real-life stories from the 1947 Partition Archive and recent South Asian American history. This creative inquiry sources poetry, eyewitness accounts, and current events to understand the current political climate while reflecting on what it means to belong somewhere. This work includes original music by GS Rajan.

The show is titled “Broken Seeds Still Grow” as a tribute to stories of ancestors who have faced displacement either through Partition or immigration but continued to be resilient and grow wherever they found home. These stories of displacement are crucial to preserve, understand, and share; they give us a glimpse into our individual pasts, while helping us understand our collective future.

This creation of this work was supported by the East Bay Fund for Artists through the East Bay Community Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Dancers' Group CA$H Grants, and crowd funders. This project is fiscally-sponsored by CounterPulse.

For more info, box office, and press kit, visit Broken Seeds. 

University Lecture/Workshop Series
March 14, 2019 - San Francisco State University
March 20, 2019 - University of California, Berkeley

Nadhi Thekkek and Rupy C. Tut give talks at San Francisco State University and University of California, Berkeley on their research on South Asian contemporary histories and using art to process the current political climate.

ODC’s Pilot Program presents Merging, a cutting-edge amalgamation of world premiers by six Bay Area female choreographers. From definitive concepts such as the meaning of intelligence and the British India Partition, to abstract works investigating dreams, strength, and nature, these women contribute their voices and perspectives in an effort to find meaningful ways to reconcile both the past and present.

In her new work, Defining Intelligence, Alyssa Mitchel examines what it means to be intelligent. The work features five dancers and integrates the recorded interview responses of twenty-six Bay Area K-8 students, school teachers, principals and professors. Nadhi Thekkek presents Reminisce, a Bharatanatyam piece inspired by witness statements from the British India Partition of 1947. Molly Matutat premieres Residue, based on a reoccurring dream of unease. The work serves to unravel the source of the dream and find means of resolve while exploring our level of viewership when dreaming. multiple ways to feel invincible, a solo work by Charlotte Carmichael, investigates how the concept of reclaiming can physically manifest itself. Tanya Chianese’s new work, Daybreak, is inspired by the sun rising over the waking rainforest surrounding the Mayan ruins of Tikal, Guatemala and explores morning rituals. Fuerza, choreographed by Marlene Garcia coalesces strength and unpredictability through the use of explosive and subtle movement.