AARTi, the Academy for Arts Research, Training and Innovation is a registered charitable institution founded in 1989 by Daksha Sheth and Devissaro. AARTi is dedicated to research, training and innovation in the performing arts in general, and dance in particular. Activities conducted under the umbrella of AARTi includes the documentation of traditional performing arts, especially the martial, folk and ritual arts of Kerala; the conducting of short term workshops and long term training programmes in various traditional arts; the running of a small, professional dance company, the Daksha Sheth Dance Company, which seeks to bridge contemporary dance and traditional Indian movement arts, bringing together artists from different disciplines of Indian dance as well as theatre, music and the martial arts; and the running of a vocal and percussion music ensemble called Asima, which crosses boundaries between the traditional and the contemporary, Hindstani and Carnatic music, and the East and the West. Interdisciplinary and cross-cultural projects are also an important part of the activities of AARTi, and over the years Daksha and Devissaro have collaborated with artists from diverse disciplines and cultures. Collaborative productions include "Sangeetam", created with the Finnish composer Eero Hameenniemi; "Falling Angels", a British Council sponsored co-production in 1997 with the British Dance-Theatre company The Kosh; and "Postcards From God", a dance-musical created in collaboration with the Mumbai based poetess and visual artists Imtiaz Dharker. |
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