Kantha-Katha K at the Birmingham Hippodrome (September 20-21st 2022)

The stories of local women shared in traditional Kantha embroidery retold as Kathak dance by Amina Khayyam

Rhys Beardmore | Tuesday 6th September 2022 11:42am

Kantha Katha-K is a unique dance performance and installation narrating local women’s stories. Amina Khayyam Dance Company engaged local Birmingham women with creative activity using traditional Kantha – a South Asian form of embroidery. Reaching them during lockdown through WhatsApp and Zoom participants worked with Artist Abeda Begum to share their personal experiences and stories.

The Kanthas form the installation and in the final part of the project they have been progressed kinetically to Kathak, a South Asian storytelling dance, by Amina Khayyam to a music score of Borodin’s Nocturne specially adapted by Jonathan Mayer to Indian instrumentation.

The performances will take place at the Birmingham Hippodrome from the 20th-21st September 2022 at the Patrick Studio.

Artistic Director Amina Khayyam said: “We are delighted to present all the kanthas created nationally by the women at Birmingham Hippodrome as part of our promise to share their amazing works with the wider audience and bring the women together in one space to meet (for most for the first time in person), share and watch the movement aspect of their invaluable works.  

“We hope we are able to transform their work through movement and have done justice to their thoughts and emotions felt during the pandemic. 

“For this performance we explored the most common theme emerged from their experience - isolation/loneliness, death, mental health/anxiety, domestic violence, hope and freedom.   

“We hope as audiences you’ll recognise the experience felt by the women and their work will remind us how vulnerable we are as a human race and though we are separated by geography, yet we are all children of the one world with much in common”

Read more from Amina Khayyam about the project here: https://aminakhayyamdance.co.uk/kantha-katha-k-bham

The project was initially developed with over 638 women in Luton, Woking, Slough, Brighton, Birmingham, Leeds and London, who told their stories and experiences during October 2020 – March 2021. In Birmingham the Kanthas were created in association with Ashiana Community Project and Birmingham Settlement.
Discover more about AKDC’s outreach project and its process here: https://aminakhayyamdance.co.uk/kantha-katha-k

The Guardian said “Khayyam is a kathak dancer and choreographer with a very strong storytelling instinct and a gift for expressive communication. She doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects, having tackled cultural taboos and injustices against women in the past.” July 2022

Visit https://aminakhayyamdance.co.uk/kantha-katha-k-bham for further information

Twitter @AminaKhayyam | Facebook @aminakhayyamdance | Instagram @aminakhayyamdc

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