Breathe In The Fragrance is a celebration of the Mogra (Indian jasmine) flower. It holds space for sensuality, for eroticism, for stillness, for vulnerability, for ambiguity, for in betweenness, for fantasy.

In many ways, it is a celebration;
of brown queerness through my experience,
of my favorite bharatanatyam composition, the Bhairavi varnam.
of Mogra (Indian Jasmine), a flower that holds deep resonance and fuels my creativity.

This work holds space for my current curiosities in dance making around body, gaze, eroticism, queer shame and fantasy. Breathe In The Fragrance holds space
For Sensuality, for Eroticism.
For Stillness, for Vulnerability.
For Ambiguity, gender or otherwise.
For the In betweeness in life.
For a Queer Fantasy.

It is a celebration of erotic ritual — of taste, of smell, of song, of dance, of sensations awakened by Jasmine — to make space for the in-betweenness of things to exist. It combines traditional Indian dance elements with modern choreography and queer eroticism.

Dance was never something I actively considered in my growing years, but as I reflect back, it was always present in my life and was part of me. My earliest childhood sensations around dance are of pure joy and abandon. In the moments that I danced, I could access a part of me that allowed for complete self-acceptance. I have always struggled with the performance of perceived masculinity, especially as a gay person growing up in India in the early ’80s. Dance allowed me to let go of all of that baggage and find abandon in my gender expression.

Some of my earliest memories that clearly stay with me to this day are around visuals and sounds of the dance we now call bharatanatyam. There was a sensory overload in its experience. The mridangam [an ancient two-headed drum used in Carnatik music] made my heart dance. I was instantly attracted to the vibrant red on palms and feet painted in alta [dye] and the heady fragrance of mogra gajras (Indian jasmine strings). All of these sensations inform my personal and dance aesthetic even today and are amplified in Breathe In The Fragrance. The work is my way of honouring my identity in a joyful way while holding onto my roots.

It is essentially what is known in bharatanatyam as a Śṛṅgāra varnam. Breathe In The Fragrance is a ritualistic dismantling of stigma around the expression of Śṛṅgāra— erotic longing—while holding sacred knowledge from structured spaces.

Varnams are poems performed in traditional Bharatanatyam repertoire that have a very defined structure with abstract dance and expressive phrases woven into a narrative. In a Śṛṅgāra varnam, the poem contains explicit erotic lyrics that build to a crescendo. Traditional Bharatanatyam repertoire contains many Śṛṅgāra varnas with different degrees and shades of erotic expression. This particular Śṛṅgāra varnam expresses a sense of urgency to be with his lover. Usually these poems are explored using metaphors, but I have chosen to incorporate a six-foot frame and fresh jasmine flowers into the work to express deep longing and desire.

The poem roughly translates as ‘I’m burning with desire for you and need you in this moment,’” In many ways, it is a celebration, a celebration of brown queerness through my experience; a celebration of my favorite Bharatanatyam composition; a celebration of the mogra flower [Indian jasmine], a flower that holds deep resonance and fuels my creativity. Breathe In The Fragrance holds space for sensuality, for eroticism, for stillness, for vulnerability, for ambiguity and for in betweenness. I'm amplifying the eroticism of the varnam and creating space for a gender-ambiguous narrative. I'm not changing its essence, just imagining it through an aesthetic that brings some of my queerness to it. I look at it as a full throttled celebration of the form, of the varnam, of mogra, and of embedded memories.