Contemporary issues through movement

Bengaluru dancer, choreographer Vishwakiran Nambi presents two of his dance productions, Yele Oota and Jaaga Illa

Bengaluru-based dance institute, Vishwakiran Dance Company will present Exordium. “It is a modern Indian dance theatre production aimed at discussing contemporary social and political human structures through movement,” explains Vishwakiran Nambi, the founder of the dance school. Vishwakiran is a trained Bharatanatyam, Kalari and contemporary dancer.

The evening will feature two full-length choreographies — Yele Oota (grand meal) and Jaaga Illa  (lack of space). While the former talks about our response and participation as a community to the food shortage, particularly during COVID-19, through intricately designed movement pieces and dramatic compositions, the latter is about the impact of hyper-metropolitanism of cities. The space constraint is shown through the dancers performing on a small wooden box. 

Vishwakiran believes art reflects the cities and cultures we live in and that it is always ‘art for everyone and everyone for art’. Vishwakiran started his career as a principal dancer for Nritarutya, a Bengaluru-based dance company before branching out independently.

He later forayed into dance film direction and choreography and made films including The Kitchen, which with his other works such as Pyre, Yele Oota, and Jaaga Illa have been staged and screened at many international festivals. 

Vishwakiran, founded his institute in 2018. His film choreographies include Suman Ranganath for Hemant Rao’s Kavaludaari, ‘Mugga Manusulu’ in Nag Ashwin’s Telugu film, Mahanati’ and is currently choreographing for a Kannada film, which will soon hit the screen.

Post COVID-19, running a dance company was a challenge, Vishwakiran says, as funds were hard to come by. “We sustain ourselves through teaching. Yet, I need the dance company as this is the only way you can develop a movement language and grammar. This is possible only if you work with dancers for a long time.”

Vishwakiran got an entry into film choreography when his dance music video, Neene went viral and got over 62k views. The song is written and directed by Gomtesh Upadhye, composed by Phani Kalyan and choregraphed by Vishwakiran. “It was this song that opened doors for me in the field.”