Dance Art Journal | Vidya Patel on choreographing stories of migration

Sarah Lapinsky interviews Vidya Patel about Akademi’s new dance work Pravaas. Published in Dance Art Journal, 5 May 2023.

“Fresh from a day of performances at the Tate Modern, choreographer, Vidya Patel, joined me via Zoom to discuss her work in Akademi’s new piece Pravaas, a site-specific, promenade performance using South Asian dance forms and elements like Carnatic vocals and bamboo structures to tell the stories of the climate-forced migration of the Sundarban people across India and Bangladesh.

I wanted to start our conversation at the beginning, to learn about the moment of inspiration that sparks the idea for Pravaas. Vidya explained how the work was conceived and organised by Suba Subramaniam, the artistic director of Akademi, a leading South Asian dance organisation in the UK founded in 1979…”