The Attakkalari Interim Festival held between 1 – 10 February in Bengaluru promises to be an important festival for the contemporary movement in India and South Asia

 

Keeping with Attakkalari’s tradition of spreading the reach of Contemporary Movement Arts and providing a platform for cutting edge innovative practices across the globe, the Attakkalari Interim Festival 2019 presents a multitude of international performances and transdisciplinary partnership projects across various venues in Bangalore between 1 -10 February 2019. This festival marks the launch of a new phase for Attakkalari’s strategic initiatives. With the contemporary arts community growing steadily in India, the festival focuses on creating opportunities and strengthening international collaborations to produce thought-provoking original new work. The festival will witness ground-breaking performances from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Canada and Spain along with collaborative projects with Britain, France and Korea.

To mention a few, while Hauptaktion Dance Company’s Situation with Doppleganger from Germany deals with the appropriation of “black” and other forms of minority dances in pop culture, Andrea Peña and Company from Canada looks at Resilience as the capacity of a strained body to recover after deformation. Switzerland’s CocoonDance explores rhythm and speed as the only driving force for a unified movement and the Daniel Abreu Company, Spain investigates the concept of construction and destruction. The thought-provoking line-up of performances at the festival has something for everyone!

The festival highlights the launch of the much-awaited Incubation Centre for the Arts and Media (ICAM). The Incubation Centre will address the need to cut across boundaries in performing arts, creating opportunities for dance and movement artists to work with actors, thinkers and entrepreneurs from other disciplines to develop new and more holistic work. The Centre envisions to be an institution for support that helps artists navigate through their professional lives and help sustain themselves financially through their creative journey. It will provide studio space, production and technical support and Attakkalari will work closely with its national and international partners to widen its impact. Our vision is for ICAM to be a creative hub that encourages some of the most relevant dialogues and debates of our times, performances and workshops that help grow our practice and community alike.

The ten-day festival will include open studio presentations, workshops and masterclasses by renowned international choreographers and teachers that will help the wider public engage with the festival and also get a sneak peek into the range of activities lined up for the year. Essence International, an initiative for practicing artists with at least two years of experience, invites applications from across the globe for an advanced training as well as mentorship by experts in Contemporary Dance and other Movement Arts. Essence International workshops will be held during the festival, by artists of global repute in different strands of Contemporary Dance, Ballet, Kalarippayattu, Yoga, Gyrokenesis and Feldenkrais Method.

The Attakkalari Interim Festival has something for everyone and promises a unique and memorable experience like no other! We request you to help us spread the word and reach out to people who might want to experience the ever-growing Contemporary Movement Arts community around the world.

Attakkalari continues to be the lead organization working in the field of Contemporary Movement Arts and Digital Arts in India today and has an impeccable track record of delivering high quality projects. With Education at the core of all its initiatives, Attakkalari’s carefully crafted, two-year Diploma in Movement Arts and Mixed Media is going strong and is designed to enable young dancers with the requisite skills to work both in the performative and educational contexts, in India and internationally. Sankshipta, our three months certification course in contemporary dance and allied disciplines is structured specifically for working professionals and students. To make Movement Arts more accessible, Attakkalari has launched the Bengaluru Youth Dance Project with customised innovative short courses in different styles of dance, martial art, yoga, fitness and theatre for aspiring youngsters between 5 and 30 years of age. The Summer Programme as well gives an opportunity for young children and adults to explore dance, movement and theatre as a way of expression