Biography
|
Born in 1985, Udupi, India, multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, producer, and teacher.
I am trained in Bharatanatyam and completed the ICE program from Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD) in 2013. I am a qualified journalist, with an interest and practice in writing. My artistic medium is therefore an amalgamation of these disciplines, along with some influence of clown-theatre generated through my years of collaborative work with clown performers and trainers. Over the last 17 years of my work as a performing artist, I have steadily moved towards an interdisciplinary practice, combining my interests and experience in dance, choreography, clowning, and writing. In 2017, I founded “INFLUX – Network for Dance, Theatre and Performance”, to sustain my work in multiple forms and formats under one umbrella. INFLUX acts as a framework that creates spaces where artists can come together to practice and share their art with each other and the larger population. |
Photo Credit: Janna Ramos-Violante
|
Mission Statement
I am an artist because this is my way of making sense of my life and the world. I make art because I need to, not because I want to.
Art is my way of learning, discovering, processing, sharing, and connecting with myself and everything around me. It is my vehicle to gaining agency and empowerment before the relentlessness of being alive.
In this process, I realise that no hu-man is an island; that my voice needs a listener in order to be heard; that my audience and I are inevitable extensions of one another.
So as to facilitate this symbiotic co-existence, I identify my work as being in a constant flux of listening and responding. All my artistic steps are results of this intent listening and thus, responding.
As is the case with any quest that is worth the while, my journey as an artist is lonesome. While I completely accept and surrender to its solitary nature, I long for occasional comfort from the fellow (re)searcher. Some of my important work as an artist comes as a response to this need for company.
I practice and study multiple disciplines because that is my tool for saying something elaborately, extensively. It is my way of embracing and embodying multiple cultures, without barriers or filters, expanding myself beyond intellectual comprehension.
My work is interdisciplinary because, I believe art is beyond its form, and needs to be experienced as such. Just like there is poetry in song, or rhythm in dance, harmony in music, and stories in pictures, everything that is transcendental is beyond form or convention.
I am deeply fascinated by this phenomenon, and have let it fuel my study and practice for the last two decades.
Art is not a product but a process, a conscious and continuous one at that. It unpacks, lays bare, examines, observes, reflects with neutrality. It is not confined to the four walls of the gallery or the theatre or to a site-specific performance, or to a mask that one wears, or to the extravaganza of the lights and the clothing.
It is what guides one's motivations after all the glamour has faded.
Art is my way of learning, discovering, processing, sharing, and connecting with myself and everything around me. It is my vehicle to gaining agency and empowerment before the relentlessness of being alive.
In this process, I realise that no hu-man is an island; that my voice needs a listener in order to be heard; that my audience and I are inevitable extensions of one another.
So as to facilitate this symbiotic co-existence, I identify my work as being in a constant flux of listening and responding. All my artistic steps are results of this intent listening and thus, responding.
As is the case with any quest that is worth the while, my journey as an artist is lonesome. While I completely accept and surrender to its solitary nature, I long for occasional comfort from the fellow (re)searcher. Some of my important work as an artist comes as a response to this need for company.
I practice and study multiple disciplines because that is my tool for saying something elaborately, extensively. It is my way of embracing and embodying multiple cultures, without barriers or filters, expanding myself beyond intellectual comprehension.
My work is interdisciplinary because, I believe art is beyond its form, and needs to be experienced as such. Just like there is poetry in song, or rhythm in dance, harmony in music, and stories in pictures, everything that is transcendental is beyond form or convention.
I am deeply fascinated by this phenomenon, and have let it fuel my study and practice for the last two decades.
Art is not a product but a process, a conscious and continuous one at that. It unpacks, lays bare, examines, observes, reflects with neutrality. It is not confined to the four walls of the gallery or the theatre or to a site-specific performance, or to a mask that one wears, or to the extravaganza of the lights and the clothing.
It is what guides one's motivations after all the glamour has faded.
© All rights reserved. Nayana Keshava Bhat
