India UK - 75 Creative Industries Collaboration with Birmingham City University

BCVA artist was asked to belong to a research group with Inidan and British born South Asian artists by Birmingham City Univeristy and put into a strand of artists to see how they would work together. Initially Anand thought it was a mistake to be put into a group of live theatre artists but in the end this was a good idea not to be subject to ones own genre of art but bein gforced to work new ideas of creativity. This short film entiltied Migration : A Photographic journey through dance was created through collabrative practice and informing the work of the Apna Heiratge Archive. The project was commissioned and co-ordinated by the India-UK Creative Industries at 75 by Birmingham City University c/o Professor Rajinder Dudrah and is commisioned by the AHRC and UKRI. The film has been produced with artists Sangini Kumar and BCVA artist Anand Chhabra with help from editors Ankit Maurya, Jyoti Singh and Akash Tirkey working under the banner of Team Gwah Theatre c/o Anirudh Sudhanshu. The film attempts to depict the lived experiences of the women gleaned from our Apna Heritage Archive collection who joined their husbands from India to settle in the UK. These women experienced much excitement and fear and in the formative years, Punjabi women spoke of their dreams ‘Supnaa’ or nightmares in some cases about indifference they experienced from newfound landscape around them. This translated into race, learning a new language and the challenges of assimilation." Special thanks to ARC Music Productions Internationall Ltd for courtesy of the background music during the dance performed by Sangini Kumar 'Raag: Bilas - Khani Todi Vilambit Gat in Teental 4.4' Performed by Baluji Shrivastav.