NH 7, a contemporary dance by Deepak Kurki enthralled the students and guests at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) where it was performed on 6th September 2013. The dance which was performed in the sprawling DST auditorium on the university campus saw enthusiastic audience sheering and applauding the various dance moves of the artists led by Deepak Kurki. Prakriti Foundation has got this dance as part of the Park’s New Festival to Hyderabad. This festival showcases new and emerging work in the fields of dance, music and theatre. The festival which is now in it’s VII edition travels to 6 different cities, namely Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. Unlike the previous years, this year the festival is opening at the UoH. The next two performances will be at the Park Hotel namely Osama, Cinema and a whole lot of Black Magic? on 7th September 2013 and A Moment of Mishearing – by Amit Chaudhuri on 8th September 2013.
Deepak is a contemporary dancer who has been engaged in artistic work as a performer, creator and teacher since the year 2000. NH 7 is strongly driven by the new phenomena of immigration of the rural population to urban spaces in search of ‘better life,’ and their reality. The piece beautifully executed by the artists depicts the intricate, confused, rapid urbanization of India. It vividly captures the mad need to build, demolish, and re-imagine the city. It explores how people, workers and individuals are caught in this mayhem and maze of bricks, bridges, construction sites and dust. The dance aims at creating moving images with bodies which reflects the current imagination of the city and the changing landscape in India.
This project was started in July 2012, by the artists of The KHA Foundation (a non-profit art organisation), a collective based in Bangalore, and is dedicated to promoting movement arts, performance, music and design by engaging in art experiments, training and performances. In August 2012 the work and the artists involved were recognised at the Prakriti Excellence in Contemporary Dance Awards (PECDA) as one of India’s upcoming artists and were awarded funding to develop the work.
Prakriti Foundation was founded by Ranvir Shah in Chennai in 1998 to host events enquiring into our cultural heritage and inheritance. The vision behind Prakriti is to host events that would play a catalytic role in changing and enlarging the cultural scene in Chennai. Thus, Prakriti Foundation saw itself typically as the moving force behind events as diverse as music concerts, seminars and serious scholarly discourse, multi media events, experimental and protest cinema and theatre festivals. In the last fifteen years, Prakriti Foundation has worked to explore identity through history and heritage, art and cultural expression. Since its inception, Prakriti has provided people with the opportunity to engage with eminent scholars, writers, dancers, theatre artists, filmmakers and musicians from India and abroad.