ガティ・ダンス・フォーラム Gati Dance Forum

Based in New Delhi, India, Gati Dance Forum is an organization dedicated to sustainable, long-term development of an environment to support progressive activities in contemporary dance in India. The Forum was founded in 2007 by Mandeep Raikhy and Anusha Lall, both of whom are choreographers and dancers.

The Forum engages in a variety of activities aimed at sparking the development of an environment to support and stimulate growth of the dance community in India, including organizing the international contemporary dance festival “IGNITE!” on a biennial basis since 2010, operating the Gati Studio that opened in 2012 in a renovated photography studio and conducting research aimed at identifying and creating a context for dance rooted in India.

The Gati Dance Forum has developed its programs through partnerships with the Royal Norwegian Embassy, the Goethe Institute, the Meeto Memorial Award for Young South Asians, the Swiss Arts Council and other organizations, while also working in collaboration with various arts organizations in India and abroad on individual projects. Presently, the Forum is incorporated as a non-profit organization under the Indian Trust Act.

Among the forum’s main projects aimed at supporting the creation of a community of independent dancers and choreographers is the Dance Union ( http://www.danceunion.in ), which holds dancer-led workshops and provides a platform for sharing information about studio space for creating works and obtaining funding, etc., while promoting ongoing dialog between artists from different backgrounds on ways to build infrastructure and a supportive environment for their activities.

Another project in progress is the Gati Reader project that gathers books and film resources on Indian dance, while also working collaboratively to create a map of Indian contemporary dance and publish new writings on Indian dance.

With a name that implies the desire to ignite conversation about dance, the Forum’s international dance festival “IGNITE” aims to build a dance community with a full schedule of intensive seminars for dancers that promote dialogue on subjects from traditional Indian dance to contemporary dance. The 2014 festival was held from January 11 to 18 with Virkein Dhar as director offered performances of a schedule of works selected from open applications with a focus works that contribute to dance in India either in terms of contents or context.

The Forum is also actively involved in residency programs. Its Artists-in-Residence program invites artists for a 3-month residency at the Gati Studio.

Also promoted are collaborations between artists from different genres, as is the case with the Forum’s Yellow Line Project, which invites collaborations between dance practitioners and artists from other disciplines to respond to, confront or dialogue with each other.

In the summer, there is also the Gati Summer Dance Residency. This program invites dancers/choreographers over the age of 18 from around Asia for ten-week residencies in New Delhi to study dance and create works.

Other programs include those in the area of dancer education, with classes and workshops organized at the Gati Studio. And, beginning from the second half of 2015, the Gati Dance Forum plans to develop a Master of Arts course in dance in collaboration with a New Delhi university.