Choreographies of Erasure

What knowledge lives in the body after it has been silenced? What gestures survive the violence of erasure?

Choreographies of Erasure is an ongoing artistic research project that critically engages with the histories, transmissions, and contemporary practices of Kathak, asking how marginalized, obscured, and contested histories - particularly those connected to women performers - might be encountered and re-imagined through contemporary choreographic practice.

Conceived and facilitated by interdisciplinary artist, Kathak practitioner, and choreographer Ghazal Ramzani, the project approaches the body not as a transparent repository through which an erased past can simply be recovered, but as a situated and unstable site of transmission, interpretation, speculation, and transformation. Through choreographic experimentation, archival encounters, dialogue, and collective practice, Choreographies of Erasure investigates what happens when fragmentary historical traces meet differently trained, historically situated bodies in the present.

The project unfolds collaboratively with Berlin-based Kathak dancers Prajna Debnath, Devika Phansalkar, Pranamita Ray, and Gabriela Langholf as Embodied Companions, and Habiba Insaf as Research Collaborator and Critical Companion.

Zulema Ali managed the sound during the lecture-performance at Spore Initiative.

Images: Sina Aghazadeh