Please note the Saturday 20 February 2:30pm performance has been cancelled. If you have booked tickets to this performance our Box Office will be in touch to offer you a transfer or a refund.
FORM Dance Projects and Riverside Theatres present
Dance Bites 2021
TWO – RAGHAV HANDA
Produced by Performing Lines
TWO sees Raghav Handa’s long awaited return to FORM’s Dance Bites seasons following his acclaimed solo Tukre’ presented in 2015. An Australian choreographer and performer of Indian heritage, Raghav has worked with Sydney Dance Company, Force Majeure, Contemporary Asian Australian Performance, as well as First Nations choreographers Vicki Van Hout and Marilyn Miller. In his impressive career Raghav has developed a unique movement style, which weaves together swift circular movement patterns of Kathak dance with robust contemporary vocabulary.
Raghav’s new work subverts the conventional wisdom underpinning traditional Indian Kathak. Central to the form is the hierarchy between musician and dancer. The former leads and latter follows; a principle as old as Kathak itself.
With long-time collaborator and tabla player Maharshi Raval, Raghav asks what happens when these roles are reversed? What happens when the musician comes into the dancer’s space? What happens if the dancer sets the rhythm; if the dancer takes control? What creative potential lies in respectfully challenging tradition?
In classic Raghav Handa style TWO is playful, full of humour, physically demanding, and treats its subject matter with the grace and reverence it deserves.
Photo Image: Martin Fox
Please Note:
Tickets to this event are sold to 75% of capacity. All Riverside patrons will be seated in line with current NSW Public Health guidelines, allowing patrons to be seated alongside each other. If you have any questions and would like to discuss this with a member of our team, please contact our Box Office staff on 02 8839 3399 or email BoxOffice_Riverside@cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au
Riverside Theatres is registered with the NSW Government as a COVID Safe venue. Our COVID Safe plan was developed in line with federal and state government health guidelines, and following consultation with Live Performance Australia, other NSW venues, and various government bodies, on enhanced health, hygiene and safety measures. These measures include: reduced audience capacity; social distancing; wearing face masks; mandatory Service NSW QR code registration check in; extra cleaning; increased sanitisation of high-touch surfaces; the provision of hand sanitiser, anti-bacterial wipes and hand washing facilities throughout the venue; traffic management plans to alleviate congestion in public spaces; and dedicated COVID Safe Hygiene Marshals.
Please review our Patron Safety Information before you visit us at Riverside.
It is also important that if you are unwell you stay home, we have updated our ticket conditions and our Box Office team are available to talk through your exchange and refund options. You can contact the Box Office on 02 8839 3399 or email BoxOffice_Riverside@cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au
Thank you for keeping our community safe.
TWO has been supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW as well as through a residency at the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Sydney.
SUITABLE FOR YEARS 7 – 12 (Stages 4 – 6)
According to the exemption under the public health order (COVID 19 Restrictions on Gathering and Movement) Order (No 7) 2020 (NSW) under the Public Health Act 2010 (NSW), issued on February 1 2021, organised groups who enter a premises as part of a school, child care, aged care or disability group are not required to provide the premises with contact details of every person in their group. This is subject to the following conditions:
- It is duty of the group organiser (teacher or carer) to keep an electronic record of the entire group and their contact details for 28 days after the event.
- The group organiser must provide the premises (Riverside Theatres) with at least two contacts to make available to NSW Health.
Curriculum Links & Resources
Download the Curriculum Links: Dance Bites Curriculum Links
Schools Bookings
For further information and to book please contact our Education Booking Coordinator on 8839 3308 or email education_riverside@cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au, or fill in our Schools Bookings Form here.
Riverside’s Risk Assessment & Covid Safe Plan
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Download our Covid Safe Plan
Accessibility
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CREATOR/CHOREOGRAPHER/PERFORMER
Raghav Handa is an Australian choreographer and performer of Indian heritage, Raghav has worked with Sydney Dance Company, Force Majeure, Contemporary Asian Australian Performance, as well as First Nations choreographers Vicki Van Hout and Marilyn Miller. Inspired by his birthright – his works combine traditional kathak principles and contemporary movement to create multifaceted and engaging explorations of modern Australian cultural identity. He has worked in a variety of dance roles including choreographer, performer, collaborator, dance lecturer, artist representative and mentor for young performers. His works: TUKRE’ (“Pieces” in Hindi 2014-15, presented by FORM Dance Projects in 2015), MENS REA (2016) and FOLLY & TIME (2018-19) have been performed across Australia and internationally to strong critical acclaim. In 2019, with support from Australian Council, Raghav completed a residency with Attakkalari dance company in Bengaluru, India and appeared in Melbourne’s Dance Massive season of YOU ANIMAL YOU by Force Majeure. In 2020, his work CULT OF THE TITANS was performed by Sydney Dance Company as part their New Breed platform and his work DAWN featured in the Sydney Opera House digital season of Unwrapped. He appeared in the Sydney Festival 2020 premiere of DOUBLE DELICIOUS, an immersive theatre work by the Contemporary Asian Australian Performance and Asia TOPA festival in Melbourne. His creations are woven through collaboration, incorporating diverse dance languages, spoken word, film and sculptural set design.
TABLA PLAYER/PERFORMER
Maharshi Raval is a musician and maestro tabla player from Benaras Gharana (school) living in Sydney. Maharshi started his initial tabla training from his grandfather Late Shri Gajanan Rabal and then joined Saptak School of Music and continued to learn under the tutelage of Late Pt. Nandan Mehta who was a disciple of the legend of Benaras Gharana Padma Vibhushan Late Pt. Kishen Maharaj, and has been learning for the last 34 years. He has travelled extensively to various parts of the world as a soloist and an accompanist to Indian classical vocalists, instrumentalists and Kathak dancers. He won 1st prize for National Youth Festival Tabla Competition. He has performed at Saptak Festival’s concerts in front of artists including Pt. Kishan Maharaj, Ustad Shahid Parvez, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Pt. Rajan-Sajan Mishra, Late Ustad Allarakha Khan, Pt. Ronu Majumdar, and many more. Maharshi conducted and directed the tabla recital of 100 students aged between 3 to 16 years on Indian Heritage Day, performed in Australian national television shows like X-Factor with India Rose on Channel 7 and in Good News Week with Sarangan on Channel 10. Maharshi runs a music institute called Shree Gajanan Cultural Mission – The Institute of Indian Classical Music and Dance at various locations in Western Sydney and beyond.
DESIGNER
Justine Shih Pearson has an interdisciplinary practice as a designer, creative producer, facilitator, writer, arts researcher and advocate. Originally trained in theatre design at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, she has collaborated on projects for live performance, digital media, film/tv, online publishing, public spaces, hospitals and museums in cities in Australia, Europe, the UK, North America and SE Asia. Mixed race and multinational, growing up between the unceded lands of the US and Australia as part of the Chinese diaspora, she has a particular interest in intercultural performance with a focus on the Asia Pacific, and seeks to centre the complexities of diasporic, postcolonial, Indigenous and migrant experience in her work. Justine is currently an Honorary Associate in the School of Literature, Art and Media at the University of Sydney and is working on a book on the concept of social reliance.
DRAMATURG
Julie-Anne Long is an award winning independent dance artist based in Sydney. Since graduating from the Victorian College of Arts in the early 1980s she has performed and choreographed on a wide range of projects with companies such as Human Veins, One Extra, Theatre of Image, Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Bell Shakespeare Company, Open City and Dance Works. From 1991-1996 Julie-Anne was Associate Artistic Director of One Extra Company with Artistic Director Graeme Watson. She has worked in a variety of dance contexts as mentor, dramaturg, curator and producer including Acting Director of dance research organisation Critical Path (2006/2007) and Dance Curator at Campbelltown Arts Centre (2009/2010). Julie-Anne was awarded an Australia Council Dance Fellowship in 2007, which encompassed research, development and the realisation of a body of work entitled The Invisibility Project. Julie-Anne has a PhD from University New South Wales and is currently a Senior Lecturer in Creative Arts at Macquarie University.
LIGHTING DESIGNER
Karen Norris has designed productions throughout Australia and Europe; based in London and Nice from 1998 to 2008. Recent designs include Terrain, Lore (Francis Rings Bangarra & NAISDA), Songs Not To Dance To & CHAMPIONS (Martin del Amo & FORM Dance Projects), On View (Sue Healey), CELLA (Germany SF 2018 & Dance Massive 2019) & Hiding in Plain Sight (Narelle Benjamin), KOTAHI (Atamira Dance Company NZ), Barbara and the Camp Dogs, Winyanboga Yurringa (Belvoir Street Theatre), The last Five Years & The Appleton Ladies Potato Race (Ensemble Theatre), Blak Box (Barangaroo & SF 2019, Melbourne 2020 Urban Theatre Projects), Broken Glass (Mooghalin SF 2018), The Weekend (SF 2019, NZ Festival 2019) & Rainbows End (Liza-Mare Syron), plenty serious TALK TALK (Vicky van Hout), Blak Drop Effect (Bankstown Arts Centre), RED (Liz Lea Dance), Silence (Karul Projects, BlakDance, Brisbane Festival 2020), Explicit Contents (Rhiannon Newton) & The Complications of Lyrebirds (Jasmin Sheppard CAC SF 2021), & Sunshine Super Girl (Andrea James, Griffith Regional Theatre, SF 2021).
SET DESIGNER Alejandro Rolandi
PRODUCTION MANAGER Gordon Rymer
PRODUCER Performing Lines