 A
brief company profile of Chaturangan
Introduction
Until recently the
development of South Asian dance in the North West region was happening
sporadically and often in isolation. The majority of, although not all,
productions were taking place in the smaller community context. Most of
the time productions were presented at events that were more social than
related to the professional arts scene.
Whilst the region
has had individual artists of national recognition the majority of the
local dance artists were not actively engaged with the developments of
South Asian Dance at a national level. As a result artists from this region
were not fully represented, their voices not heard and their presence
not celebrate
Over recent years,
following the success of a national initiative that led to the start of
Chaturangan, we have moved a long way towards addressing some of the issues.
Although a small organisation Chaturangan has played a strategically important
role. It is now time to focus so that our vision is apparent and secure
foundations are laid for its realisation.
The business plan
‘Beyond Performance’ has three main sections: Artistic Programme,
Organisational Development (which includes the professional development
of the officers) and Finance
Background
Chaturangan (meaning
four courtyards) was established as an unincorporated association in 2002
following the first Chaturang initiative. The North West region has made
many contributions to the developments of South Asian dance in Britain.
The region has been favoured with a number of fine classical and contemporary
dancers. Several artists from the region were in the forefront of the
movement that led to setting up the national South Asian dance agency,
ADiTi.
The Arts Council initiative,
Chaturang, began to address this by consolidating work done so far to
establish to a collective identity for South Asian dance in the region.
Chaturangan is continuing to further this objective through various initiatives
making South Asian dance more visible in the mainstream.
Track Record
The main success of
Chaturangan was to present a collective of the work of regional South
Asian artists in mainstream venues, thereby raising the status and recognition
of their work.
Through a successful
project Chaturangan
- created an excellent
resource of materials ideal for publicity, which was displayed at the
Decibel
event;
- secured
a regular place in Merseyside’s own dance festival, LEAP;
- created excellent
new choreography for artists in the region, such as Dheeralalit, Ardha
Nari Swar and Til Another; and
- developed a strong
relationship with Bluecoat and MDI
on Merseyside, and Contact, Octagon, and DiGM
in Greater Manchester.
The region
Historically, the
North West has shown a strong commitment to dance in education and community
settings, with work taking place in schools, day centres, high security
hospitals, temples and art galleries. However, much of this work has happened
in isolation and because of this lost its impact. There are several
organisations that work with South Asian dance artists at different levels.
These include: the partners of Dance North West, Indian Associations,
Milap individual regional artists, companies, venues and organisations.
Although the training development opportunities of Dance North West is
open to all artists in the region they are not specifically targeting
the South Asian dance artist. Other organisations are providing performance
opportunities but do not address the training and support needs of individual
artists.
In contrast, Chaturangan
is focused on creating schemes and training programmes that support the
development needs of professional South Asian dance artists in the region.
Our work has been and continues to be to develop links and broker partnerships
with various organisations to platform to present and showcase primarily
the work of local and regional artists. We encourage and support small
initiatives of choreographic work that provides ad enables artists to
perform in small-scale venues and build confidence during their development.
Furthermore we have enabled and maintained dialogue between artists between
this region’s artists and those from other regions to provide an
awareness of the national dance scene.
Chaturangan’s
work has been concentrated in Merseyside and Greater Manchester. Greater
Manchester has, in recent years, seen an insurgence of investment and
greater opportunity. The successful bid of Liverpool’s Capital of
Culture will bring new opportunities for development.
[Photos
by Simon Richardson] 
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