Sept 25th and 26th, 7:30PM

Often the things we desire are not ours.

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 60-minute interdisciplinary solo kathak work weaving original music, set design, kathak and garba. barkha 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, the denial of dance and embodied selfhood.

Matrilineages are most often the unnamed, interrupted, and absorbed into the histories of patriarchs. The work confronts the body as a site of ancestral history asking: who do we carry within us? This work allows these ancestors to breathe again and ask what in your body might be their unfinished reaching? 

icchā is meant to be a somatic shraadh, an ancestral reverence of many secret tragedies that have dissolved with passing time. 

icchā has been made possible by the CUNY Dance Initiative Grant 2026, a Special Projects Grant from the Princess Grace Foundation 2026, and partial funds from the New England Foundation for the Arts NDP Grant Award 2024.