2016 Application Form
ERASING BORDERS Festival of Indian Dance

Curatorial Guidelines

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The Erasing Borders Festival encourages a diversity of dance styles and perspectives of Indian dance, for the New York City public. Each evening (Outdoors & Indoors) typically includes performances by multiple artists representing multiple dance styles. Typically, an artist performs for 8-13 min.

Your video is the most important part of your application. An impressive video can catch the eye of the curator and make your performance memorable. When submitting a video, make sure the video is well-lit and appropriately edited for maximum impact. Below are some tips for editing your videos:

  1. The dancer should be clearly visible in the video
  2. The video(s) you submit should be of the work that you propose to perform at the festival, and should reflect exactly what you will plan to perform that evening.  
  3. You may submit up to 2 additional alternative videos with your application. Each video should follow ideally be less than 13 minutes.
  4. Dance works are often better appreciated when put in context. We suggest that you include a commentary/background on your piece in the ‘Details of the Proposed Work’ section of your application. If your dance video is preceded by an introduction/narration that does a great job of providing this commentary, you may keep that introduction as part of the video. But if the introduction is just okay, we recommend that your video start where your dance starts - this way, curators will see the most impactful part of your presentation (your dance) first, and they can read up the context/background of the work on the application form.

The video you submit should be include the complete, continuous work you intend to perform, if selected. It is imperative for the curators to see the entire work, because our decision making involves thinking through how all the selected works (by different artists) will collectively form a unique, cohesive experience for our audience. An excerpt put together with bits and pieces from different parts of a work or different works will not work.

Finally, though not mandatory, we do encourage works that erase borders in some way.

Best of luck! We look forward to reviewing your applications.

Sincerely,

Rashi Verma

Dance Director, Erasing Borders Festival of Indian Dance