Nadhi Thekkek – Dance/USA Artist Fellow

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Image Description: Nadhi Thekkek is a South Asian woman with long curly hair, wearing a black cotton cropped blouse with red patterns. She is wearing big 'jumka' earrings, and sitting on a chair. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Nadhi Thekkek

she/they

Danville, CA | Chochenyo Ohlone, Bay Miwok, Muwekma, Confederated Villages of Lisjan, Yokuts

Dr. Nadhi Thekkek is a dancer, choreographer, and the Artistic Director of Nava Dance Theatre. Thekkek uses the south Indian dance form of bharatanatyam to navigate place, identity, and politics through the lens of her lived experience as a child of immigrants and a South Asian, diasporic woman. Her body of work connects contemporary histories to today, creating critical intersections of culturally specific art, diaspora, and storytelling, and reimagines how bharatanatyam can serve marginalized narratives that need to occupy space right now. Her latest touring work “Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies” sources community interviews, historical texts, and poetry to explore the intersections of labor, agency, and belonging in our South Asian ancestry.

Thekkek’s body of work has been supported through the NEFA National Dance Project, The MAP Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission, and others. Through Nava, Thekkek also produces and co-facilitates the Unrehearsed Artist Residency Program, where South Asian dancemakers create art that challenges the status quo. She is one of the co-founders of Varnam Salon and serves on the board of the Western Arts Alliance.

Thekkek has learned bharatanatyam from Guru Smt. Sundara Swaminathan (Kala Vandana Dance Company, San Jose) and Guru Smt. Padmini Chari (Nritya School of Dance, Houston). As of 2012, she has continued training under Guru Sri. A. Lakshmanaswamy (Chennai).

Learn more about Nadhi Thekkek:

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Image Description: Nadhi is a South Asian women with her hair tied back in a bun, with stage make up, and is wearing read cotton collared kurta, sitting on the ground on stage, with her hands in the air, with a knowing happy expression. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.
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Image Description: A dancer in a red saree costume is sitting on a black marley floor with indian minature paintings projected on the screen in the background. The images are of an old home, mountains, and trees, in conversation with the nostalgia the dancer feels. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.
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Image Description: Three dancers in white cropped tops and wide legs, on a blue lit screen. The dancers are facing all different directions, with their gaze upward, their hands covering their ears. Photo by Stephen Texeira.
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Image Description: One dancer is sitting on the floor, and the other is sitting on a chair behind her as if doing her hair. One is acting as the mother, the other as a daughter. They are wearing white with blue river-like lines. Photo by Stephen Texeira.

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