SPOTLIGHT
IT’S SHAPING UP TO BE A SIZZLING HOT INDIAN SUMMER!
A scene from Svaha! by Nova Dance Company. Image credit: FRANCESCA CHUNDOFF.
Indian Summer Festival is back with a carefully curated event for its 13th edition.
Among performances announced as part of the festival are Rhythm Infinitum: Shabazz Palaces and Sarathy Korwar in concert and Nova Bhattacharya’s Svaha!.
“We’re thrilled to announce these two first performances as part of the 13th edition programming of the Indian Summer Festival,” says Pawan Deol, Executive Director of Cultural Programming.
Festival goers can expect compelling programming from local and international artists and thinkers.
July 13: Rhythm Infinitum: Shabazz Palaces and Sarathy Korwar at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Two visionary artistes come together to explore, explode, and break assumptions of the linearity of time. Experience the Afrofuturist hip-hop sonic landscapes of Shabazz Palaces and the Indofuturist world-building of percussionist and polymath Sarathy Korwar.
Korwar is a drummer, composer and producer raised in India and based in London. He has established himself as one of the most original and compelling voices in the UK jazz scene. His music fuses jazz, electronics, Indian folk and classical influences with a focus on decoloniality, community, race and transcendence. His latest album, Kalak, celebrates a rich South Asian culture of music and literature and urges a cure for historical amnesia.
Korwar has toured and collaborated with Anoushka Shankar.
Shabazz Palaces’ music is both cerebral and automatic. It is hip-hop, dub, jazz, R&B, soul, funk, African, experimental, and occasionally even pop. But over the course of five albums, Shabazz Palaces have conceived the fluid boundaries of their own one-band genre.
In his unstinting drive to reimagine hip-hop, Butler remains one of the preeminent visionaries of the last quarter-century. Still innovating as he enters his fourth decade as a working musician – splintering, rebuilding, and expanding the possibilities of sound. All-timers like Radiohead and Lauryn Hill have invited him to join them on tour.
July 14 and 15: Svaha!, Nova Dance Company. Born in Mi’kkma’ki (Halifax) and raised in Tkaronto, Nova Bhattacharya is a ground-breaking choreographer, cultural leader and dancer. She is the founder and artistic director of Nova Dance, established in 2008.
Her dance works breathe rich life into the world of contemporary Canadian dance. For over 20 years, Bhattacharya has been crafting vivid images that invite the viewer on a journey of heart and mind. Integrating improvised movement and gesture, she is inventing a language that needs no translation. Her curiosities and collaborative spirit have led to a body of work widely recognized for its craft, use of space, subtlety of gesture and accessibility to audiences. She’s always been a rebel, reinterpreting traditions to tell new stories. Bhattacharya has embraced multiple influences and her studies of Butoh, folk dance and Western dance practices have impacted her work which she describes as “uprooted” from the movement, theatre, and rhythms of Bharatnatyam. Her critically acclaimed works have been presented across Canada, in Germany, India, Japan, the United Kingdom and Uganda.
Her choreography has been commissioned by DanceWorks, Blue Ceiling Dance, Canada Dance Festival, Cahoots Theatre, Dusk Dances, Tarragon Theatre, Toronto Dance Theatre, Theatre Direct Canada and Dancemakers. She has performed as a guest artist with Peggy Baker Dance Projects and Compagnie Flak and others. Nova believes that dance expresses the essence of our humanity and has tremendous transformative power to bring us together.
Svaha! is a shimmering, whirling ode to the rites and rituals of women. It celebrates the cathartic power of performance to unite people in laughter, beauty and shared joy. Inspired by women building community through acts of celebration, mourning and worship, Nova Dance uses the universal language of movement to gather people together in synchronous experience.
Shabazz Palaces.
Sarathy Korwar.
In addition to a cast of more than 20 performers from almost 30 different dance traditions – everything from Bharatnatyam to Butoh, as well as ballet, jazz and salsa, Svaha! features local artists in an opening invocation that accompanies the performances.
From this experience of communion and solidarity comes a work brimming with life, colour, and revelry of every hue.
When and where
July 13: Rhythm Infinitum: Shabazz Palaces and Sarathy Korwar. Tickets from $30.
July 14, 15: Svaha! Tickets from $19. Festival highlights and info events at indiansummerfest.ca.