ZAMEEN

In 2011 a group of artists from Australia and India (from dance company Attakkalari) journeyed deep into India’s Narmada Valley. They met and lived with communities that are gradually being submerged due to large scale dam development in their region. To date over 30 million people have been internally displaced, and the resulting Indigenous activist movement – the Narmada Bachao Andolan – has become one of the most successful and sophisticated in contemporary history.

As a result of that trip, the artists created contemporary dance work Zameen and a companion short documentary of the same name. The works premiered in 2013 at Floating Land Festival in Queensland and toured to Parramasala Festival later that year. An adapted installation of the work later screened at Attakkalari’s biennale.

Zameen is a partnership between Jehan Kanga, Leah Barclay and S. Shakthidharan, and in its original form partnered with dancers from Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts and CuriousWorks.

Dancers: Meghna Nambiar, Sylvester Mardi, Ronita Mookerji, Attakkalari Dancers
Visual Artist: S. Shakthidharan
Sound Artist: Leah Barclay
Producer: Jehan Kanga
Camera & Sound Assistant: Jehan Kanga

Images below by S. Shakthidharan and the children of Narmada Valley.