Hari Krishnan / inDance | SKIN, Mea Culpa, Uma and Holy Cow(s)
By Hari Krishnan/inDANCE
Described as a “maverick gadfly who is aggressively iconoclastic and a Very Naughty Boy who scoffs at tradition, turns things upside down and shakes out all the cobwebs….”, choreographer Hari Krishnan presents an unmissable evening of high energy dance and complex choreography with a powerful queer, socio-political subtext in a mixed bill of four subversive works, transgressing the boundaries of culture, race, gender and sexuality.
Works include:
Skin – a gay duet exploring race, power and desire- a lust filled no-strings attached tryst.
Mea Culpa – a subversive, satirical solo on cultural re-miss/appropriation inspired by a vintage photograph of American dance pioneer Ted Shawn’s 1926 work The Cosmic Dance of Siva.
Uma – a tongue-in-cheek solo and a contemporary tribute to the rich tradition of female impersonation in South Indian dance.
Holy Cow(s)! – Inspired by Ai Wei Wei’s quote, “Everything is Art. Everything is Politics.”, Holy Cow(s)! is an ensemble work performed by 4 dancers and is a caricature remix, recycling worn-out culture-specific taboos of gender, identity, sexuality, politics and power via a global dance lens.
Photo by Shana Hillman
inDANCE is a progressive dance company which presents works that are a potent, distilled synthesis of artistic director Hari Krishnan’s Eastern and Western artistic and aesthetic personae. Acknowledging the burdens and legacies of tradition, inDANCE disrupts and investigates post-modern evolutions, driving the company’s arc on a trajectory that absorbs influences from the West into its strident idiom of contemporary Asian cultures. The company pioneers work that is controversial, unconventional and radical, producing eclectic, sensual and virtuosic dance that confronts dominant discourses on global culture. inDANCE’s work is presented at prestigious venues around the world including The Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (Berkshires, MA); St. Mark’s Danspace; Columbia University; Joyce SoHo; Battery Park Downtown Dance Festival; La MaMa (New York City); The Smithsonian Institute; Lincoln Theater,; Dance Place (Washington DC); University of Wisconsin; University of Pennsylvania; Mondavi Center (California); Clore Studio-The Royal Opera House; Luton Fringe Festival; The Hat Factory; Interchange Studios (UK); Canadian Museum of Civilization (Gatineau, Quebec); Tangente (Montreal); Canada Dance Festival, (Ottawa); Harbourfront Centre (Toronto); Singapore Festival of the Arts and the NAFA Lee Foundation Theatre (Singapore); Sutra Dance Theatre (Malaysia); the Alliance Francaise; Sangeeta Mahal/Tanjavur Palace; Krishna Gana Sabha; The Music Academy; Chandra Mandapa/Spaces; and The Other Festival (India).
Hari Krishnan is a Bessie and Dora Award nominee dance artist, scholar and teacher. He is Associate Professor of Dance in the Department of Dance at Wesleyan University and artistic director of inDANCE. Krishnan draws his choreographic ideas from queer identities, contemporary dance from global perspectives, courtesan dance traditions in South India, subverting cultural clichés and challenging popular notions of culture. He continues to be commissioned internationally for his bold and transgressive choreography.
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival continues to support La MaMa’s commitment to presenting diverse performance styles that challenge audience’s perception of dance by featuring performance/installations, experimental film screenings & public symposiums which address dance artists’ engagement with the current political climate, as well as honoring diasporic histories and legacy, ancestral inspirations and inter-generational dialogue.