HRAFF Westside

Meet the Curator

• Shivanjani Lal

  

  Shivanjani Lal is a Fijian-Australian artist and curator. Her work explores personal grief to account for ancestral loss. Exploring narratives of indenture and migratory histories from the Indian and Pacific oceans, works uses story-telling, objects and video to account for lost histories and cede futures for healing. She is the recipient of the 2019 Create New South Wales Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship, was a 2020 Studio artist at Parramatta Artists Studios and the 2020 Georges Mora Fellow. Lal’s work has been shown and curated work in Australia, New Zealand, India, United Kingdom, Barbados and France. 

Meet the Artists

• Bhairavi Raman

  

  Bhairavi Raman is a skilled Indian-Australian violinist and improviser. Extensively trained in both Carnatic and Western Classical forms, she uses the violin to express her bicultural identity. She has 15 years of experience across Australia and internationally, with over 300 performances to her name, including shows at some of South India’s oldest and most distinguished music venues.  Collaboration is at the heart of Bhairavi’s creative practice. She has produced acclaimed works with local and international artists across disciplines including poetry, spoken word, movement, dance and theatre. Outside of performance, Bhairavi also runs a grassroots not-for-profit organisation called Gamaka, which aims to cultivate engagement in Carnatic music.

• Shamita Siva

  

  Shamita Siva is a multi-faceted performance artist and theatre maker who specialises in movement and devised work. Highly experienced in stage and screen mediums; Shamita is a performer who enjoys a challenge. A trained dancer from an early age; after over 16 years of ballet training and a broad range of other dance styles, she developed an interest in theatrical dance forms such as Butoh alongside her acting. She holds a BA Performing Arts from Monash University, supplemented by training with Film & Television Studios International, Stella Adler AoA Los Angeles, AAFTA, and Meisner Technique. As a performing artist her work has travelled across Australia and overseas, from the tropical islands of Guam and Brunei to cosmopolitan Singapore. She often incorporates intercultural practices and cross disciplinary elements into her work, inspired by everyday experiences, music and sound, and socio- political issues she is driven by. Outside of her own projects as a solo artist she performs with Melbourne’s premiere Bollywood troupe Sapphire Dance, where she met collaborator Ida Ghatge. When not on large scale stages and screens, she is an active performer within Australia’s queer cabaret scene and is passionate about creating high energy performances with her signature style. Behind the scenes, Shamita is also a writer and director, and is popularly consulted for movement direction. She is in the process of producing her first dance film with co-creator Ida Ghatge, entitled  ‘Twin Flame’ 

• Ida

  

  Ida is a highly specialised dancer and teacher in the Indian dance style; Kathak. With over 20 years of dance experience, she is known for her grace, speed, storytelling and rich patterns of footwork and spin sequences. She also has a broad knowledge of various other world dance forms including Indian folk, Classical Fusion, and Bollywood. Ida also has a range of experience in psychology, writing and public speaking as well having completed her honours in Psychology from the University of Melbourne. Currently, she is undertaking her Masters in Psychology. She volunteers her time with Griefline– a national Australian helpline catered to individuals experiencing the effects of grief,loss, trauma and isolation. She prides her Indian heritage but is passionate about challenging cultural stereotypes, sex based biases and the stigma around mental health in WOC.  Learning from her personal struggles, she wishes to empower other women to take charge, and be unapologetically themselves. She aims to become a clinical psychologist as well as use her art to increase awareness about mental illness through film, stage and the practice of dance therapy.