She/her

Divya Kasturi – a rare blend of tradition and innovation! Divya is a cultural trailblazer in dance whose career spans continents and disciplines. She has been blending the rich traditions of Bharatanatyam with cutting-edge technology for the past decade alongside performing exquisite classical work.

Divya will be delving deeper into her pioneering exploration combining Classical Indian dance and music and the world of Virtual Reality. Deepening her earlier iteration of this ground-breaking endeavour, Divya will be working with collaborators ranging from artists, practitioners, dramaturg, digital directors and creative-technologists to further scope out the challenges involved in such unique immersive digital-ARTistic expressions. How does one approach choreography in these instances- how does it alter, elevate, simplify or evolve — and what might the audience experience be?

www.divyakasturi.com

She/her

Gillie Kleiman works with and in dance and choreography, creating performances, texts, events and pedagogical encounters. Gillie’s work has a persistent interest in both the figure and the activity of the non-professional, and much of her work has involved participation of non-professional collaborators or of the audience.

In 2020, Gillie initiated a new cycle of work focusing on fat and fatness, of which this commission is part. At Sadler’s Wells, Gillie will be developing her research into the ways in which fat bodies coming into contact with one another produce meaning, drawing on a wide range of danced, cultural, social and personal forms of touch.

www.gilliekleiman.com

She/her

Monique is freelance Dance Artist and Creative based in London. She founded her company Jona Dance in 2019 to further explore choreography, movement direction and an overall creative practice. She has recently launched a new podcast called Candid Convos with Jona Dance exploring everything contemporary dance in the UK.

After training at Rambert School, she has worked for Richard Alston Dance, New Adventures and more, including playing the role of Juliet in Mathew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet.

Through this commission, I will be exploring how poly rhythms can be used as a foundation for choreographic structures. I would like to see how it impacts story telling through movement & characterisation when layered with modern day cultural influences from Africa and the Caribbean.

Utilising contemporary dance as the primary movement language, I am interested in the layered use of music, voice, set, rhythm and texture but through the lens of a second-generation migrant who is culturally, both Jamaican and British.

www.jonadance.com