Dance Routes Aug

All choreographic work created under Dance Routes is rooted in the Odissi tradition. Mastery of its abstract movement, rhythmic precision, and narrative expression through abhinaya has been central to my inquiry into the nature of the self. Over time, while serving as sole Artistic Director of the repertory group, I expanded these parameters to integrate sound, language, and movement informed by my parallel engagement with mantra, yoga, bhakti poetry in the English language and tantric sādhana.

Between 2005–2015, I worked primarily with Gotipua dancers transitioning into adult performers. Their extraordinary physical skills formed the foundation of a shared studio practice, where acrobatic vocabulary, Odissi technique, and yogic awareness were woven into a coherent movement language.

At the core of this work was an embodied understanding of the spine as a hollow flute—an axis connecting earth and sky, awareness and form. Odissi movements were explored as extensions of this central axis into space through symmetry, gaze, and rhythm. Footwork generated acoustic and energetic power in the lower spine, which was then channelled through the torso as rhythmic and expressive patterning.

Through this approach, gestures became mudrās, movement sequences traced living yantras in space, and the boundary between inner and outer experience dissolved. Dance thus became a means of shifting identity from body to energy, and from energy to Awareness. This fleeting yet luminous state—described in both Advaita and non-dual Tantra as abiding in the witness or deity principle—has always been the source of my dancing, and remains the ground of my teaching.