barkha patel: icchā / desire
About this Event
Join us on Saturday, June 20, 2026, 4-6pm: TOPAZ ARTS hosts an intimate showing of a new work icchā / desire by barkha patel, AAPI Dance Artist-in-Residence.
In Hindu philosophy, vasanas are unfulfilled longings that survive the death of the physical body, passed down through bloodlines as living, present icchā / desire.
icchā is a new interdisciplinary solo kathak work weaving original music, film, set design, and garba. Set in Gujarat, barkha, a daughter whose path has diverged dramatically from her lineage, is visited by her maternal ancestors in a dream. They choose her to express, release, and fulfill their desires: born from survival, loss, intimacy, violence, and the denial of dance and embodied selfhood.
icchā is meant to be a somatic shraadh, an ancestral reverence. The work confronts the body as a site of ancestral history, creating space within it to welcome unnamed matriarchs to breathe again and to ask ourselves what in our body might be their unfinished reaching?
barkha is set to premiere this work on Sept 25th - 26th, 2026 in NYC with the support of the Princess Grace Foundation Special Projects grant.
barkha patel is a TOPAZ ARTS 2025-26 AAPI Dance Artist-in-Residence, a program which supports and celebrates new works by Asian American and Pacific Islander dance artists, made possible by TOPAZ ARTS, Inc. in part with funds from the NYS DanceForce, a partnership program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
photo by: Jimmy Chen
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