Niranjani Iyer

17 May - The Festival Academy invites: How open are our conversations?

Niranjani Iyer is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and Artistic Director of The Pocket Company. Her works shift through theatre, dance, music and puppetry; and are informed by the culture and current affairs of two continents, Europe and Asia. Guided by the Tibetan-Buddhist philosophy of how all sentient beings are dependent and connected to each other, her works (dis)entangle issues of plurality, diversity and displacement.

Through her arts projects and performances, Niranjani fosters dialogue and attempts to disassemble barriers of access and ownership of the arts and public spaces. She is the founder and director of d.r.i.f.t - a hyperlocal performing arts festival in the Himalayas. Through the festival, she opens spaces of the impossible for children from families of daily wage workers as well as women from the margins across class and caste who are often told they can’t. Her social art projects are transformative and structured to catalyse questioning and change. She creates inclusive spaces that welcome a variety of persons from vastly different backgrounds who would otherwise never interact in a shared creative space.