Vikram Iyengar
Departing from and returning to Vikram Iyengar’s “mothership” of the kathak dance form in various ways, dance performance Full(er) Circle traces a journey asking what and who kathak can be.
Full(er) Circle
A three part solo
Concept, choreography, performance by Vikram Iyengar
“As we travel full circle, do we find ourselves arriving somewhere else from where we began? Departing from and returning to my ‘mothership’ of the kathak dance form in various ways, Full(er) Circle traces a journey asking what and who kathak can be. Forging fresh entry points – aesthetically, thematically, politically, socially – can we change and challenge ideas of what kathak is allowed to be and do?
‘Frame’ lays out a kathak canvas in the conversational style typical to a kathak recital; ‘Water Bodies’, a dance film made during the devastating second wave of the pandemic in India, responds to social, political and environmental concerns; ‘Arrival’ sketches various relationships we can have with a power larger than ourselves drawing on different genres and languages of Indian spiritual music and poetry.
Everything is created from the fundamentals of kathak; yet, is everything here kathak? Does the familiar become unfamiliar, asking us to re-align our relationship with it? As we travel full circle, do we find ourselves arriving somewhere else from where we began? How do we make a full circle full-er?”
About Vikram Iyengar
Vikram Iyengar is an arts leader and connector based in Calcutta, India, and working internationally. He is a dancer-choreographer-director, curator-presenter, and arts researcher-writer. Co-founder and artistic director of Ranan Performance Collective, he also initiated and leads the Pickle Factory Dance Foundation – a hub for dance and movement practice and discourse. His scope of work spans practice, discourse, critique, ideation and management, and revolves around the central tenet of creating deep connections with and through the arts.
Trained in kathak by Padmashree Smt. Rani Karnaa, Vikram’s performance work is noted for the conscious bringing together of classical dance, movement, drama and design. His range of work spans choreography for stage and film, dance and theatre explorations, and performance collaborations. This diversity is linked by a fundamental and continuing engagement with the principles of the kathak form and the kathak informed body and mind. Vikram’s international credits include choreographer for Academy Award winner Florian Gallenberger’s film, Shadows in Time and co-choreographer on Helena Waldmann’s Faust prize nominated piece Made in Bangladesh. Since 2013, he works regularly with Indian contemporary dancer-choreographer Preethi Athreya on solo and group projects.
An INLAKS scholar with an MA in Performing Arts from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Vikram has taught at BA and MA levels in India and abroad. He regularly contributes articles and papers to various publications and international seminars, conducts a range of workshops, and works on arts research projects for institutions across the world. An ARThink South Asia Arts Management Fellow, 2013-2014, he is a Global Fellow of the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) 2017, 2019, and 2020. He was one of the four Asia Pacific delegates in the Australia Arts Council’s International Arts Leaders Programme, 2017-2018. In December 2015, he was awarded the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for the field of contemporary dance by the national Sangeet Natak Akademi.