Performance of “Bodies | Borders” with Heather Rastovac Akbarzadeh at UC Santa Cruz (28 Apr 2018)
I’m pleased to be performing the first incarnation of “Bodies | Borders,” a new kathak-Iranian dance collaboration with Heather Rastovac Akbarzadeh, at the Shahnameh and Beyond symposium at UC Santa Cruz on Saturday, April 28, 2018 at Porter College. For this stage of “Bodies|Borders,” we concentrated on intercultural exchanges on kathak and Iranian dance in terms of aesthetics, movement vocabulary, and critical dance histories. We hope to expand upon this groundwork in the future through a conceptual choreographic collaboration grappling with Islamophobia and the US travel bans under Trump. This performance of “Bodies | Borders” features live music by Sam Cushman (tabla) and Keshav Batish (sitar).