Varnam Salon is a collaborative venture curated by Preethi Ramaprasad, Nadhi Thekkek, and Shruti Abhishek. On this platform, we give space for Bharatanatyam artists to share work and discuss their process through our favorite compositional structure, the varnam. Known for its rigor and depth in the Bharatanatyam repertoire, the varnam is a window through which dancers can share their unique journeys with the form.
‘When Eyes Speak’, is San Francisco’s first South Asian Choreography Festival, founded and curated by Preethi Ramaprasad along with Shruti Abhishek. We showcase the vastness of South Asian choreography in the Bay Area. In the multi-day dance festival, running for over four years, we widen the range of South Asian dance seen in performance spaces in the city. The festival has showcased local alongside international artists, “folk” forms alongside “classical,” and “contemporary” forms with “traditional,” inviting viewers to reevaluate these terms.
‘Performing Voices of Bhakti,’ is curated by Nikhil Mandalaparthy and Preethi Ramaprasad. We employ dance, visual and musical artists to perform radical “devotional” poetry on the Voices of Bhakti social media page with origins spanning the entirety of the South Asian subcontinent and the diaspora. By featuring many languages and religions in our collection, we are taking a stand against xenophobia and religious communalism seen today.
