Acclaimed Connecticut and Toronto-based dance company inDANCE has been appointed the Don Michael Randel Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Chicago for the 2024-25 academic year.
inDANCE is a progressive dance company whose works spans a large choreographic trajectory of Bharatanatyam to global contemporary dance works to queer dance creations. It presents works that are a potent, distilled synthesis of artistic director Hari Krishnan’s Asian and western artistic personae. Probing the burdens and legacies of popular representations of “tradition,” inDANCE disrupts the familiar and evolves new meanings for the archaic, propelling the company on a trajectory that subverts normative political and social life-worlds. The company pioneers work that is unconventional and transgressive, producing eccentric, sensual, and virtuosic dance that confronts dominant discourses on global culture. inDANCE’s work is presented at prestigious international festivals and venues.
The company will visit the University of Chicago campus twice throughout the residency, during the University’s autumn 2024 and spring 2025 academic quarters. inDANCE will present two signature performances, along with hosting interdisciplinary panels and discussions, visiting Department of Music and Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) classes, leading workshops with music and TAPS students and ensembles, and engaging with school and community programs in the city.
The autumn residency will feature the Bharatanatyam dance-inspired performance Love Songs: Metaphor and Movement on Friday, October 25 at 7:30 p.m. in the Assembly Hall at the International House. The spring residency includes a performance of inDANCE’S ROWDIES IN LOVE on Friday, April 11, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. at the Logan Center for the Arts.
Artistic Director Hari Krishnan is a dance artist, scholar, and educator specializing in Bharatanatyam, queer dance, and contemporary dance from global perspectives. He explores postcolonial complexities in Indian dance and queer themes and is among the pioneering generation of choreographers of South Asian origin who began to explore the intersections between traditional South Asian and global contemporary dance forms in the North American diaspora. He is Professor of Dance at Wesleyan University. His monograph, Celluloid Classicism: Early Tamil Cinema and the Making of Modern Bharatanatyam won a special citation from the 2020 de la Torre Bueno© First Book Award Committee of the Dance Studies Association. Krishnan is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow and recently received a Jacob’s Pillow Lab Residency (2024), Wesleyan’s Provost Research Award (2023), and a National Dance Project Grant (2022).
“inDANCE is honored to be the University of Chicago’s Don Michael Randel Ensemble-in-Residence. Our musicians and dancers look forward to forging meaningful relationships with the exceptional members of the UChicago community who are at the cutting edge of research, scholarship, and global impact,” said Krishnan. “We hope our two performances will create new possibilities on how dance and music can be engaged in more humane, globally relevant and invigorating ways.”
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Residency Events
Love Songs: Metaphor and Movement inspired by Bharatanatyam dance
Friday, October 25, 2024 | 7:30 p.m.
International House, Assembly Hall – 1414 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL, 60637
A solo work performed and choreographed by 2024 Guggenheim Fellow Hari Krishnan, accompanied by four musicians, performing in the Karnatak (South Indian classical music) tradition. Love Songs is a performance and an interactive lecture-demonstration exploring poetic and progressive ways of embodying love, sexuality, and eroticism in Bharatanatyam dance.
Free admission. RSVP is requested.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Music and the International House Global Voices Performing Arts Series, with support in part by the Birendra K. and Anila Sinha Fund for Indian Performing Arts at International House.
ROWDIES IN LOVE
Friday, April 11, 2025 | 7:30 p.m.
Logan Center for the Arts, Performance Hall – 915 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL, 60637
ROWDIES IN LOVE delves into technical rigor and queer intimacy, using inDANCE's unique movement style to challenge societal norms, performed by eight brilliant dancers. ROWDIES IN LOVE is a transformative political statement advocating for accepting diverse gender and sexual identities.
Tickets: $33, $22 under 35, $12 students
This event is part of UChicago Presents' Music Without Borders series subscription. Purchase tickets at tickets.uchicago.edu.
Presented by UChicago Presents.