"
...a meditation...on Partition and its relationship to the immigrant experience...

— Brandon Yu, San Francisco Chronicle, 2017

Stories of belonging.

Nadhi Thekkek (Nava Dance Theatre) and Rupy C. Tut (Art by Rupy) create Broken Seeds Still Grow, a multi-disciplinary dance theatre production exploring the continuing impact of the 1947 British India Partition. Through bharatanatyam dance and mixed visual media, they examine the hyphenated-American, immigrant experience, linking it to the displacement of their ancestors during Partition. This creative inquiry sources poetry, eyewitness accounts, and current events to understand the current political climate while reflecting on what it means to belong somewhere. 

Partition was one of the most formative events in South Asia's recent history, creating over 15 million refugees and leaving over one million people dead. Nadhi and Rupy have sourced eyewitness accounts from Partition collected by collaborating organization, the 1947 Partition Archive (Berkeley, CA) and researched the current South Asian immigrant experience to understand how the feeling of displacement continues to shape identities today. Nadhi and Rupy use bharatanatyam, calligraphy, indian miniature painting, and spoken word to tie these contemporary narratives to their personal experiences as Americans of South Asian descent.

Review by Sonia Dhami in Indica News (2022)
Preview by Brandon Yu in the San Francisco Chronicle (2017)

Past Shows:
The Flight Deck, Oakland (2017)
ACT, San Francisco (2018)
Asian Art Museum (excerpts) at Kearney Street Arts Festival (2018)
CounterPulse, San Francisco (2019)
Rotunda Dance Series by World Arts West and Dancers' Group, San Francisco (2019)
Lecture Demonstrations, UC Riverside (2020)
Bankhead Summer Series, Livermore (2022)

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press kit.

2019 Broken Seeds - Press Photos
File Size:	5842 kb
File Type:	zip

Download File

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producers.

Broken Seeds Still Grow and Broken Seeds/Taking Root are produced by Nava Dance Theatre and Art by Rupy.

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supporters.

The creation of this work was supported by the East Bay Fund for Artists through the East Bay Community Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Dancers' Group CA$H Grants, and crowd funders. 

The premiere of this work was co-presented by South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), South Asian Americans, Leading Together (SAALT), Berkeley South Asian Radical Walking Tour, Pioneering Punjabis Digital Archive (UC Davis, MESA), Jakara Movement. 

Consider making a tax deductible contribution to support the production and touring of this work. Individual contributions continue to be a crucial part of making this work come to life.

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credits.

SHOW

• Runtime: 75 minutes
• Performed with live music

CREDITS

• Creators/Directors: Nadhi Thekkek and Rupy C. Tut
• Choreography: Nadhi Thekkek
• Indian Miniature Painting/Calligraphy/Animation: Rupy C. Tut
• Music Composition/Orchestration/Flautist: G. S. Rajan
• Visual Art Projection: Darl Andrew Packard and Wolfgang Wachalovsky
• Video and Editing: Kat Cole
• Dancer Collaborators: Nadhi Thekkek, Shruti Abhishek, Lalli Venkat, Shelley Garg, Aishwarya Subramaniam, Janani Muthaiya, Priyanka Raghuraman, Sanjana Melkote
• Musician Collaborators:  G. S. Rajan (flute), Sindhu Natarajan (vocal), R. Kesavan (percussion), Anjana Rajan (nattuvangam), Chris Evans (cello)
• Lighting Design: Richard Board, Danielle Ferguson 
• Rehearsal Director: Shruti Abhishek
• Costume Design: Christopher Gurusamy
• Costume Tailoring: Aahaaryaa Tailors (Chennai)
• Past Funders: California Arts Council, East Bay Community Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Dancers’ Group CA$H Grants, City of Oakland's Cultural Funding Program, ACT Artshare Residency, CounterPulse House Artist and Co-Production Programs, San Francisco Arts Commission

Original Cast Credits:

• Dancer Collaborators: Nadhi Thekkek, Shruti Abhishek, Lalli Venkat, Tanu Sreedharan, Sri Thina Subramanian, Vertika Srivastava
• Musician Collaborators:  G. S. Rajan (flute), Sindhu Natarajan (vocal), Santosh Chandru (percussion), Preethi Ramaprasad (nattuvangam), Chris Evans (cello)
• Rehearsal Director: Sri Thina Subramaniam