THE PREMIERE OF KOLAM: AT THE THRESHOLD

ABHINAYA DANCE COMPANY OF SAN JOSE ANNOUNCES

THE PREMIERE OF KOLAM: AT THE THRESHOLD

November 7

Mexican Heritage Plaza

Abhinaya Dance Company; Photo credit: Mukund Gunti

Abhinaya Dance Company, an Indian classical dance company founded by Artistic Director Mythili Kumar announces Kolam: At the Threshold* on Saturday, November 7, 4 pm at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose.

Kolam: At the Threshold, choreographed by Abhinaya Principal Artist and Choreographer Rasika Kumar, is a new full-length 80-minute Bharatanatyam dance work that explores ritual, inheritance, and cultural memory through the South Indian practice of kolam—daily rice-flour drawings made at the threshold of the home. The piece integrates Bharatanatyam movement, Carnatic music, spoken text, and spatial design inspired by kolam’s geometric structures.

Kolam centers the threshold as both a physical and symbolic space—between inside and outside, tradition and modernity, belonging and exclusion. The artistic vision is to transform the daily ritual of kolam into a contemporary performance structure, using its principles of symmetry, repetition, and impermanence as choreographic tools.

“I am overjoyed to share this new work that investigates what it means to consciously choose tradition rather than inherit it passively,” said Choreographer Rasika Kumar. “Kolam examines questions of language loss, shifting gender roles, migration, and the tension between preservation and evolution. The piece asks audiences to look differently at what counts as art, and whose labor gets to be called that. The rituals women have always performed in the home — careful, skilled, and largely unseen — are placed center stage.”

*Kolam: At the Threshold is inspired by the book Feeding a Thousand Souls: Women, Ritual, and Ecology in India- An Exploration of the Kolam, by Vijaya Nagarajan, Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Francisco.

Abhinaya Dance Company’s programs are supported in part by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, SV Creates in partnership with the County of Santa Clara, and individual donations. Past funders include the California Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

CALENDAR LISTING

Abhinaya Dance Company, a San Jose-based Indian classical dance company announces the premiere of Kolam: At the Threshold by Abhinaya Principal Artist and Choreographer Rasika Kumar

WHO:               Abhinaya Dance Company, an Indian classical dance company founded by Artistic Director Mythili Kumar.   

WHAT:             Kolam: At the Threshold by Abhinaya Principal Artist and Choreographer Rasika Kumar

WHEN:             Saturday, November 7 at 4 pm         

WHERE:           Mexican Heritage Plaza, 1700 Alum Rock Avenue, San Jose

TICKETS:          Tickets go on sale beginning September 8

About Abhinaya Dance Company of San Jose

The Abhinaya Dance Company of San José was founded by its Artistic Director, Mythili Kumar in 1980, to present innovative and professional quality performances of South Indian classical dance forms. 

Since 1991, Abhinaya has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, California Arts Council, and City of San José, for its collaborations with musicians, Kathak (The Guru-1991 with Chitresh Das Dance Company), Margaret Wingrove – (modern dance company – 1993), Japanese Taiko drummers (In the Spirit with SJ Taiko-1993 and 2010), and a Balinese ensemble (Ramayana – with Gamelan Sekar Jaya- 1997, 2010). 

The company has appeared several times in the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and in several different Asian Performing Arts Festivals. Abhinaya has been invited to present its acclaimed dance theater production, Gandhi – The Mahatma, at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, and in 2007 to New York and New Jersey. Abhinaya has also won recognition through the Isadora Duncan dance awards committee for its collaboration with SJ Taiko and its 2016 production of Vaanara Leela.

Abhinaya offers ongoing classes for students of all ages in San José and Monte Sereno.

About Rasika Kumar

Rasika Kumar is an accomplished Bharatanatyam performer and choreographer, steeped in tradition but with contemporary sensibilities. She served as the Associate Artistic Director of the Abhinaya Dance Company of San Jose (ADC) and was a featured soloist, principal dancer, and choreographer for all of ADC’s performance seasons from 2005 to 2016. Rasika learned Bharatanatyam from her mother Mythili Kumar, Artistic Director of ADC and continued her training under renowned teachers including Padmabhushan Kalanidhi Narayanan, Prof. C.V. Chandrasekar, Bragha Bessell, and most recently with Mavin Khoo. Her innovative solo, group and collaborative choreography have been featured throughout the SF Bay Area and abroad, earning her an Arts Council of Silicon Valley Performing Arts Fellowship (2008), Isadora Duncan Awards (2011, 2018), and Lakshmi Viswanathan Award (2014) for Tanjore Quartet from Sri Krishna Gana Sabha (Chennai, India) for her solo performance.