For immediate release:

ERASING BORDERS FESTIVAL OF INDIAN DANCE BRINGS AN EXCTING SCHEDULE OF
PERFORMACES TO NEW YORK CITY SPOTLIGHTING A UNIQUE RANGE OF TRADITIONAL AND
MODERN INDIAN DANCE FORMS

* Festival highlights classical Indian dances such as Bharatanatyam,
Kathak,
Kuchipudi, Odissi to contemporary choreographies, modern and post-modern
works

* The Indo-American Arts Council presents the first Dance Festival to bring
together performances and choreographers from all over the world to one
stage in New York City Aug 18-21

* Press Conference & Welcome Reception on Monday, Aug 18th at Consulate
General of India (3 East 64th Street) – 3:00 pm onwards

NEW YORK, NY – August 8, 2008 – The Indo-American Arts Council today
announced a packed schedule of performances to be presented as part of the
Erasing Borders: Festival of Indian Dance to be held in New York from
August
18-21, 2008. The lineup of performances showcases the richness in the range
of Indian dance forms and puts the many facets on the art of dance on
display. In its debut year, the dance festival will showcase 23 different
performances by 15 dance troupes and solo performers from around the world.
Classical, modern and contemporary dance share the Erasing Borders stage to
form a magnificent mélange of styles and traditions. The festival’s
educational component will explore the complexities of aesthetics,
sensibilities, issues and perspectives of the rich tradition of Indian
dance
while nurturing exciting new dimensions developing in the Indian, American
and global contexts.

This year’s Festival programming kicks off with two free outdoor day-time
performances as part of Battery Dance Company’s Downtown Dance Festival on
August 18-19. Other Festival highlights include two evening performances on
August 20-21 as well as an extensive variety of panels, lectures and
workshops on topics such as “Expressions & Narratives on Indian Dance”,
“Erasing Borders: Issues of Identity, Immigration & Change in Indian
Dance”
and “Reinterpretation of Traditional Movement.”

Festival Director Prachi Dalal says, “Erasing Borders brings together many
different levels of conversations that are part of new movement
vocabularies
emerging in India and the diaspora. It provides viewers a selection of
performances whose depth, scope and quality are simply unprecedented.”

Each day’s production is different yet is designed as a coherent,
expressive
performance which interweaves with the others to create a compelling whole.
The evening performances have been arranged thematically into two showcases
around the themes of "Transitions & Translocations" and "Globaliz-Asians."

A full list of artists scheduled to appear along with venue information for
each day is included below. For more information on the entire festival
and
to purchase tickets, visit www.iaac.us

Monday, August 18th: Free Lunchtime Performances
Battery Dance Company's Downtown Dance Festival
Performers: Natya Dance Theatre, Manu Kala Mandir, Anurekha Ghosh &
Company, Janaki Rangarajan, Ananya Dance Theatre Company

Time: 12pm - 2pm; Venue: One Chase Manhattan Plaza (Nassau & Liberty St)

Tuesday, August 19th: Free Lunchtime Performances

Battery Dance Company's Downtown Dance Festival
Performers: SAMPRADAYA Dance Creations, Manijeh Ali, Thresh, Nayikas Dance
Theater, Dakshina/ Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company, Sinha Danse

Time: 12pm - 2pm; Venue: One Chase Manhattan Plaza (Nassau & Liberty St)

Wednesday, August 20th: "Transitions & Translocations"
Performers: Natya Dance Theatre, Parijat Desai Dance Company, Thresh,
SAMPRADAYA Dance Creations, Anurekha Ghosh & Company,
Manu Kala Mandir, Janaki Rangarajan, Parul Shah & Prashant Shah.

Q & A Moderated by Uttara Coorlawala, Modern Dancer, Scholar & Critic

Time: 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Venue: The Ailey Citigroup Theater, 405 W 55th Street at 9th Ave
Cost: Regular price $35 per person; Students $25 (with Student ID)

Thursday, August 21st: "Globaliz-Asians"

Performers: Nayikas Dance Theater, Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance
Company, Sudarshan Belsare,
MariaColacoDance, Sinha Danse, Ananya Dance Theatre

Q & A Moderated by Rajika Puri, Dancer. Choreographer and Writer
Time: 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Venue: The Ailey Citigroup Theater, 405 W 55th Street at 9th Ave
Fundraising Dinner & Concert: $100 per person
Concert Only: Regular $35 per person; Students: $25 (with Student ID)

The performances include:

Ananya Dance Theatre (Minnesota): It is a company of women artists of
color,
diverse in age, race, nationality, and sexual orientation. Based on
contemporary interpretations of the Odissi dance form, aesthetic traditions
of Bengal, and practices of street theater created by women's groups, the
company seeks to reach and engage diverse people. Drawing from the passion
of women's movements world-wide toward social justice, the choreographic
trend of the company's work involves dancing stories of ordinary lives to
invoke a broader commentary about social justice and philosophy.

Anurekha Ghosh
& Company (United Kingdom): The performance is a combination of music,
dance, visual art, film, poetry, and mime. The company's aim is to
communicate the beauty and emotional intensity of North Indian classical
Kathak dance while interpreting the contemporary world.

Dakshina /Daniel
Phoenix Singh and Company (District of Columbia): They give viewers the
unique opportunity to experience dance as a movement that links arts,
cultures, and social causes. The vision of Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh
Dance Company is to explore and present dance in its complexity and
multiplicity, celebrating tradition while constantly creating new
vocabularies in movement and dance, evolving to newer and higher standards.
The performances connect tradition with cutting edge ideas, using mythology
to explore sexualities creating a stunning visual feast.

Dr. Janaki
Rangarajan (Virginia): Dr. Janaki Rangarajan is a senior disciple of Dr.
Padma Subrahmanyam for more than 23 years and started learning
Bharatanatyam
from her illustrious Guru at age four. She will perform dances that are
praises to the Hindu deities specifically to Lord Shiva. It is a
combination
of musical notes or Swaras along with prose/poetry or Sahitya, usually in
praise of a Hindu deity.

Manijeh Ali (Canada):
Manijeh Ali is a contemporary dancer and choreographer with intensive
training in Bharata Natyam, Kathak, and traditional West African dance.
Originally from Afghanistan, Manijeh is the founder of Silken Dance (2006),
which is committed to creating and producing contemporary dance projects
that portray the history of people who live along the Silk Road.

Manu Kala Mandir
Dance Academy (Canada): The performances highlight the male/female
interaction. The items selected for the festival capture two important
markers in the thematic arch: the moment when the male and female spirits
feel the initial attraction and meet for the first time (Abhisaranam) and
the moment when, after a period of separation, they reunite and, like the
two merged rivers, build a stronger, deeper relationship where they
complement each other and become integral halves of a twofold whole
symbolized by the iconography of Ardhanarishwara.

Maria Colaco Dance (New
York) Maria Colaco creates work that is a culmination of her cultural,
professional and educational experiences - whether from her native India,
her years on Florida's Redneck Riviera or her current life in New York.
Influenced by pedestrian gestures, break dancing, classic modern dance and
theatre, and frequently utilizing text and a wide range of media, Maria
Colaco's work appeals to an ever-expanding audience. Maria's choreography
benefits from her commitment to challenge the established boundaries
between
sacred and secular, classical and pop, comedy and tragedy.

Natya
Dance Theatre (Illinois): Hema Rajagopaln and Krithika Rajagopalan, the
mother-daughter duo, believe in producing innovative work that preserves
Bharat Natyam in its full integrity, developing the art form in new
directions, and bringing it to diverse audiences all over the world. As a
choreographer Hema has created numerous short works and over thirty
evening-length productions. The company will present both traditional and
innovative works at this festival ranging from stories of the Krishna,
rhythmic explorations to the stories of creation.

Nayikas Dance
Theater Company feature Rudrakshya (India & New York): Nayikas is New
York’s
first resident classical Indian Odissi dance theater company. Nayikas is
both a presenting and performing company. It draws from feminist
iconography
present in the footnotes of Indian mythology, history and literature. In a
rare collaborative production with Ridrakshya, an all-male Odissi dance
company on tour from India, they will present ‘Ardhanarishwara’. This
piece
explores dimensions of the primordial androgyne, both as the mythographic
diety Shiva, and as the human being who transgresses or otherwise blurs
gender-divides.

Parul Shah & Prashant
Shah (New York & India): Parul Shah from New York and Prashant Shah from
India are both powerful performers trained in Kathak dance, who have
performed and toured extensively all over the world. They come together to
perform ‘Yugal’ a signature piece of renowned choreographer Kumudini
Lakhia
that has been presented all over the world to great acclaim. Yugal
literally
means duet, and is explored through 'Nritta' or the abstract element of
Indian dance extracted from its physical structure.

Parijat Desai Dance
Company (New York): Since 1995, Parijat Desai has been exploring ways to
blend Indian classical dance, modern/postmodern dance and other forms. She
strives to find organic connections between forms, to investigate new ways
to respond to Indian music, and to find overlaps between drama in the
Indian
classical tradition and Western dance-theater. The performance for the
Festival, is based on The Wall, a folk tale passed down by generations of
women and collected by poet-folklorist A.K. Ramanujan.

Sampradaya Dance
Creations (Canada): Sampradaya believes that dance is a mirror to society,
inspired and rooted in the expression of human experience. The Company
explores dance as a medium for meaningful communication, engaging and
enriching the lives of its collaborators and viewers. The Company's
strength
lies in its diversity and range of performance and collaboration; its
versatility is showcased in traditional classical performances of
Bharatanatyam and through its innovative works. The performances showcase a
new take on the much-loved sport of cricket and a multi-disciplinary,
multi-sensory, mystical movement piece evoking the mystery of ‘Shunya’
the
full and complete void, intersecting the three cultural streams of India,
China and the Middle East.

Sinha Danse (Canada):
Sinha's creative impulse wells up from the recollection of his cultural
origins, expressing itself in a dynamic tension between the intimate and
the
universal, between control and abandon. Sinha uses the universality of the
body to explore harmony and dissonance, and tensions created by the
collision of East and West. Beautifully expressive mudras (hand gestures)
and the rhythmically complex footwork of Indian dance combine with the full
body movements of modern, ballet and the martial arts in “Quebasian
Rhapsody” (a word play on Quebec & Asian).

Sudarshan Belsare
(Massachusetts): A transgender performer, Sudarshan Belsare is perpetuating
the classical tradition of Stri-Vesham (female impersonation) where the
target gender identity of a woman's psyche and body is the medium to
communicate Nayaki Bhava (the voice of the female protagonist) in the
traditional Bharatanatyam repertoire. Belsare is particularly interested in
keeping the work bold, edgy and full of risks and remains committed towards
extending critical thought in the understanding and treatment of
traditional
Bharatanatyam in North America.

Thresh (New York):
Thresh was founded by Artistic Director, Preeti Vasudevan in 2004 with the
main aim of exploring and developing a new dance-theatre language drawn
from
traditional Indian dance and contemporary global genres. Preeti has an MA
in
Choreography and Movement Analysis from Laban Centre, London and has
recently released an interactive educational website on Bharatanatyam.
Thresh will restage the work “Tides of the Moon” that was originally
created
for the Tsunami Disaster Benefit, Organized by the IAAC and Christies, NY.

About the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC):

The Indo-American Arts Council is a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit,
secular service and resource arts organization charged with the mission of
promoting and building the awareness, creation, production, exhibition,
publication and performance of Indian and cross-cultural art forms in North
America.

The IAAC supports all artistic disciplines in the classical, fusion, folk
and innovative forms influenced by the arts of India. They work with
colleagues around the United States to broaden collective audiences and to
create a network for shared information, resources and funding. The focus
is
to work with artists and arts organizations in North America as well as to
facilitate artists and arts organizations from India in their endeavors to
exhibit, perform and produce their works here. All donations to the IAAC
are
tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowable by law.

For further information, please visit www.iaac.us

About the Downtown Dance Festival

The Battery Dance Company’s Annual Downtown Dance Festival was initiated
in
1982 to introduce a wide variety of worthy dance companies of all genres to
the large and diverse audiences that gather in lower Manhattan’s public
spaces. Audiences are as likely to be first-timers as to be aficionados,
with business executives sharing the space with mothers and toddlers,
construction workers and bike messengers on their lunch break. The Festival
places a strong emphasis on the inclusion of diverse dance styles and a
multi-ethnic roster of performers.

PRESS CONTACTS:

Peepul PR

646.495.6224

Gayatri Hingorani / Sri Bhattacharya
gayatri@mypeepul.com / sri@mypeepul.com

High resolution pictures are available upon request

--
Deborah Mauldin
President
American Dance Guild
mauldind@American Dance Guild.org