Barkha Dance Company Presents Iccha

Kathak artist and choreographer Barkha Patel presents icchā, a new interdisciplinary solo work weaving original music, film, set design, and Gujarati folk form garba.

Drawing on the Hindu philosophical concept of vasanas — unfulfilled longings that survive death and pass through bloodlines — icchā follows barkha, a daughter whose path has diverged from her lineage, as she is visited in a dream by her maternal ancestors. They choose her to express, release, and fulfill their desires: born from survival, loss, intimacy, violence, and the denial of dance and embodied selfhood. The work is conceived as a somatic shraadh, an ancestral reverence, asking what in our bodies might be our ancestors' unfinished reaching.

Patel is a recipient of the 2023 Juried Bessie Award and the Princess Grace Dance Award '24. Presented as part of the CUNY Dance Initiative residency at BMCC Tribeca PAC.