IGNITE beyond contemporary dance

A bunch of choreographers, who realized that there is not much room to show their work, founded GATI in 2007 so that all of them could make a sustainable environment for every performer. “We started from a basement with workshops where a few practitioners would come in and every performer would learn something from each other” said Virkein Dhar, Festival Director.

GATI started IGNITE- a Festival of contemporary dance, in 2010, to fill up the vacuum that was created between the performers and the audience.

Mirra performing According To Official Sources at IGNITE

“The first season was pretty exciting as we had a good turn out and we have been growing ever since then and have never looked back. Our focus has always been looking at Contemporary Dance forms which is Indian in its context. So, our idea was to show that we come from a certain dance background before getting into Contemporary and that is why for us, contemporary is not a theme but a lens through which we are a looking at different performers.” Added Virkein.

The focus of the festival is to look for and get work which is Indian in context or a concept of a collaboration between Indian artists with international artists. Speaking about the ideology of the show, she added “We are also aiming to make people aware about what does it mean to be a contemporary Indian dancer because it is quite different from how we understand contemporary dance in a western context. It is also to create a wave that we don’t want to be like westerners but want to create unique work rather than replicating.”

Further adding to it, she said “We are challenging the way contemporary is being treated because the word comes with a lot of baggage and means different things to different people. We want to bring in work which is relatable for the audience here since without the connection between the performer and the audience, we will fail in our aim.”

Venuri Perara performing Traitriot at IGNITE

This year, GATI is trying to fetch a new audience and attract people who weren’t interested in arts before. “It is a test for us and that’s the reason we started off with Terence Lewis thinking that it might interest a lot of people and even if 10% of turn up, we have reached our goal.”

Every season of the festival has introduced some new artists and this year IGNITE has brought Helena Waldmen, Rani Nair and a few more artists to perform. On being asked how GATI choses the performer, she said “We have an open call which goes out 9 to 10 months in advance. This year we opened from December 2013 to May 2014. And for the selection, we invited people from different walks of life- theatre, dance, curators, funders, some audience who have no connection with it and so on, it is not solely our decision.”

Further speaking about if GATI is trying to uplift the situation of Art or trying to introduce the true meaning of Contemporary, she said “We are trying to create a sustainable ecology for the survival of dance in our country. Especially in the conference this year, there are practitioners who are trained in the classical dance forms but it is the way that they perform which is contemporary for us. It is to build a community of dance and to connect with each other.”

Virkein Dhar, Festival Director at IGNITE

This is the first time that IGNITE will hold a conference where artists from different countries would share their experiences, issues and would have the opportunity of exchanging information, developments, way of working etc. It is designed by the practitioners and aims at healing the fractures in the community. IGNITE is also holding Master classes which would be 3 hours long. It would be about training the body and focusing on the dance forms they practice.

Also, different workshops where one of the performers, Rani Nair, who is focusing on inheritance, would take workshops where people have to get-in something that they have inherited and perform with it.

“We have reached quite far and every year we see new people coming in. There is development in the want of people to become the part of the team and to know more about the entire festival and this dance form. We, our advancement, everything is expanding.”

Commenting on why they have kept few shows for free and few on the basis of passes (of different prices), Virkein said, “For us to have this balance is important because we want people to pay for art since it takes time to create it and I think if you can go out for movie shelling out Rs. 400-500 per show, you can also shell out for art and culture. We have kept it accessible but have also aimed at increasing the value of art in the minds of people.”

Virkein, ending the conversation, talked about their aim and their future, “I think it is really about finding a place where everyone belongs to a dance community who feel and experience the sense of it as otherwise it might not evolve as an ecology. We want to do it every year and in smaller places too, so we hope that the next time we come, we actually do a part of the program in the smaller states.”