Posts Tagged ‘sampad’

South Asian dance at the festival

Dance from Southern Asia plays a more prominent role in this year’s festival, with performances and workshops from that part of the world featuring every week.

The dancers of Javanak performed in Hereford on the opening day and are involved in Utopia, the international folk dance spectacular dominating Victoria Square over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Akram Khan Company’s ‘Gnosis‘ brought Kathak to Town Hall this week. We recorded an interview with Akram Khan while he was in Birmingham earlier this year for British Dance Edition.

This year sampad are celebrating their twentieth anniversary as well as the 60th anniversary of the Indian Republic. They’ve brought two shows to International Dance Festival Birmingham, the first from New York, the other from Delhi:

Of these shows, sampad’s Piali Ray OBE says that they:

have toured the world winning countless accolades, and represent the next generation of bright talent coming from the South Asian diaspora

The Hindu has an interview with Abhimanyu and Vidha Lal and you can see some excerpts from The Absent Lover here:

To find out more about the performances and to buy tickets, please go to www.idfb.co.uk.

Guest Blogger: Piali Ray OBE

2010 is a time of celebration for sampad, and as such we are delighted to be a part of International Dance Festival Birmingham once again, with some fittingly spectacular shows.

This year is sampad’s twentieth anniversary of supporting, promoting and developing South Asian arts in Birmingham. We’ve recently returned home to the new and improved mac at Cannon Hill Park. And we’re also celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Indian Republic.

Piali Ray OBE

IDFB is a fabulous asset to the city. It really puts Birmingham on the map as a centre for dance, attracting big acts from around the world.

This year sampad is bringing in young rising stars of South Asian dance – Abhimanyu and Vidha Lal, a classical Kathak duo from Delhi, and the more contemporary Thresh Dance Company from New York. They are both well-established names, who have toured the world winning countless accolades, and represent the next generation of bright talent coming from the South Asian diaspora.

They are fantastic role models for any local budding artists, showing how you can use dance as a creative channel and make a successful career out of it.

We were keen to reflect the diversity of Birmingham and also the musicality of the city, because there is a great live music scene here, and dance and music go hand in hand. So, as well as dancers, we have brilliant musicians coming with them to accompany the performances and bring them to life.

I hope you can join our celebrations at what promise to be two spell-binding performances.

Catch The Absent Lover (May 13) and Kathak Duet (May 14) at The Patrick Centre, tickets £10/£8 conc.