5days Dance Bridges Festival organizes “The sense of Intimacy” at ICCR

Ambarnath Bhattacharya, abptakmaa, Kolkata, 11th August 2019 : Dance Bridges festival has become a much awaited encounter for performing arts aficionados, by placing Kolkata firmly on the map of international arts festivals. This dance biennale founded in 2015 by Venessa Maria Mirza supported by an international team based in UK, Taiwan and France has grown from strength to strength. Now in its third edition there was almost 40 artists hailing from 15 countries to take part in this 5 days art extravaganza working around the theme of “The sense of Intimacy”.

The opening day performances took place at ICCR featuring Asomates Dynameis Dance Company (Cypress), Tijmur Dance Theatre (Taiwan), Gabrielle Revlock (USA) and Martin Piliponsky Braier (Argentina). The festival saw participation from other renowned dance groups and artists like Massala Dance Company, Florent Schwartz, Harm Weistra, Juliana Ottlick, Compagnie Humaine, Dadans, Papia Chakraborty, Pintu Das, Van Huyhn Company, Pietro Marullo, Subhajit Khush Das, Casey Avaunt, Diya Naidu, Purnendu Meshram, Stefano Fardelli, Partha Bharadwaj and Vanessa Maria Mirza.

Vanessa Maria Mirza talking about her experience said, I was inspired in the beginning in 2014 to try to create a small one time event in Kolkata for artists to meet and share their works which developed into a festival in 2015. It had an amazing response from artists, audiences and participants. And so I dared to dream to create an organization to support the Festival as an international team to support this as well as Indian based advisers and board members. I think it’s important as artists not to be too easily satisfied with what are creating and where we are at, and to be aware of what is happening in other parts of our country and around the world.

Making this event extra special is the ambition of Vanessa to ensure the festival is open to all by offering most events free of charge apart from workshops requiring a participation fees. Performances and showcase will take place across Kolkata inviting the national and international audience to discover our unique city whilst watching some of the finest contemporary dance made today. This will help with our changing world and society. Publicity : Supreeta Singh. Photography : Gopal Debnath.