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A conversation with Deepa Nallappan (Bharata Natyam choreographer), Rahul Varma (playwright and theatre director), and Gabriel Dharmoo (composer, singer, performer, drag artist), three Montréal artists with biographical ties to India or Indian culture. This exchange about the role of Indian identities in their respective art practices took place on May 7, 2024, at Concordia University in Montréal. TURBA was represented by our co-editor Sandeep Bhagwati (composer, music researcher).
Contributor Notes
Rahul Varma is an award-winning playwright, activist, essayist, and Artistic Director of Teesri Duniya Theatre. He co-founded the theater journal alt.theatre: Cultural Diversity and the Stage. His recent plays include Counter Offence, Bhopal, Truth and Treason, State of Denial, Dhara's Revenge, Kali's Dance, and Merchant of God. He received the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and the Lifetime Honorary Membership Award from the Canadian Association for Theatre Research.
Deepa Nallappan, originally from India, migrated to Canada in 2014 and is a dedicated artivist practitioner, choreographer, performer, and instructor of Bharatanatyam, trained by Guru Sri M Swamy and Smt. Jyothi Pattabhiram. In Montréal, she is the creative director of the ParamNrithyalaya school, teaching and promoting Indian Classical arts, and the curator behind the annual Natyanjali Festival of classical dance. Her most recent choreography Kannama shares the story of her separation from her children and the ensuing mental trauma.
Gabriel Dharmoo is a music composer, vocalist, and interdisciplinary artist. He was awarded the 2017 Jules Léger Prize for chamber music (CCA). Following up on his internationally acclaimed solo Anthropologies imaginaires, his new production Bijuriya merges music, drag, and theater and has been presented a dozen times in Canada since 2022.
Thobile Maphanga is a South African dance practitioner, scholar, writer, educator, and creative collaborator passionate about her continent and finding more holistic solutions to resolving issues of well-being and full living through the arts. She works partly as a project manager and assistant curator for JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience and all its attaches, sits on the boards of Flatfoot Dance Company, Durban University of Technology, and most recently was asked to join the Festival Academy Board and General Assembly.
Ndèye Mané Touré holds an MA in business administration from the African Institute of Management (IAM Dakar), heads MAKEDA Productions, an artist production and management company. She managed the 1er Temps contemporary dance company for ten years (2010–2020) and coordinated the Cie Fatou Cissé dance company's tour in 2015. She also manages Côté Jardin, a taste and culinary laboratory bringing together agriculture, art, culture, astronomy, and technology in relationship to our daily lives.