Abhilash Ningappa is the Founder and Artistic Director of Play Practice Artists Residency based in India. He is recognized as a performer, choreographer, and teacher both nationally and internationally. Abhilash holds post-graduate degrees from SEAD (Salzburg) and APASS (Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies) (Belgium) and is a trained yoga practitioner and martial art teacher in Kalari Payattu and contemporary dance.
Abhilash has won the Pecda award for “Architect of Self Destruction” and has taught in many studios around the world. He has choreographed works and collaborated with artists, and is known for his workshops on Story Boarding, "Embodying Critical Situation," improvisation and composition, all focused on performance as a practice. For the past 5 years, Abhilash has been organizing Play Practice Apprenticeship program and Yoga Practice Teachers training program. In 2019, he launched the first Fight Practice martial arts workshop and also organizes yearly residencies for artists in India.
HIS TEACHING
EMBODYING CRITICAL SITUATION: Improvisation and Composition Workshop
Abhilash Ningappa's workshop focuses on improvisation based on principles of martial arts. His unique method allows dancers to explore possibilities through composition and recover movements through creative choices. The workshop begins with a warm-up session that leads into various movement practices influenced by martial arts and contemporary dance, leading towards improvisation practice.
Ningappa's research centers on sensorial perceptions and their relationship with early life and memories. The workshop focuses on fundamentals such as breath, speed, and energy, involving the core structure of the body influenced by different methods of kalari payattu and other martial arts combined. The workshop primarily focuses on the dancer's relationship with the space and people around.
The practice is about identifying our way of expressing ourselves in certain situations, such as moments of confrontation, dealing with situations, accepting and mainly reacting. The workshop encourages participants to create a score to create an incident and let the body react, with the mind following or vice versa. Using senses to provoke emotions created through incidents, the workshop helps identify the space filled with accumulated information through movement and research.
Participants experience reactions through various tasks and scores, disengaging the mind from the body and observing the body's reaction. The workshop encourages participants to recollect or replay the incident and identify it with a new perspective, realizing that the new is nothing but a combination of various memories played in different time and space, which are constantly changing and passing every moment. The workshop encourages participants to bring feeling and let the body occupy and transfer, allowing it to pass to give space for the next incident. Running from incident to incident, going through different emotional states, identifying the presence and absence, and identifying the state of mind and body through these different emotional states.
CHOREOGRAPHER / COLLABORATION
Lets Make Up India : with Eva Maria Kupfer (Switzerland)
Disposable Heroes : with Bangalore Dance Collective (India).
Troubled Duet : in Bangalore international dance festival (India)
Life Unedited : lecture performance in Alkantara (Lisbon)
Pro Choreo Laboratory : With Tanzhouse(Zurich)
15 Pieces : with Daniel kok , performed 15 solos at Alkantara dance festival
Architect of Self Destruction : Pecda Awards , India Tour.
Fall Back: with Battery Dance festival : New York , US
No Speaking Solo : Isadora Dance Festival : Russia
Too Far East Is West : with Ana Jezabel , Nicola Fabiana and Carla Guida Johnson
Persistence of Being : Students of Masters program at Ambedkar University
COUNTRIES/STUDIOS
Belgium : Parts Residency, Artists Commons, Company Thor-Thierry Smits, Artesis
Germany : TanzFabrik, MaraMeo, Dock11, Freiburg contact festival, Tanzfactor
Prague : Dance Perfect and ALTA
Hong Kong : I-Dance Festival
Spain : Nunart, Lacaldera, Dansehotel, Ibiza Movement and performance,
Canada: Love-In
US: Hofstra University(New York) and Brown University (Providence)
Poland : Warsaw Dance Department and teatr tańca zawirowania
Denmark: Dansehallerne and Tinkuy Studios
Italy : Spazio Franco (Palermo)
Dublin: Rex Levitates Dance Company, Irish Modern Dance theatre, Crux Dance Theatre
CHOREOGRAPHERS/MENTORS
Constanza Macras : "Back to the present" and " The past” India Tour
Katie Duck : Freakatoni” Improvisation Summer performances in Amsterdam.
Tania Carvalho : “Icosahedron” performance tour in various venues in Europe.
Liz Roche : Rex levitates Dance Company
John Scott : Irish Modern Dance theatre (Ireland)
Willie Dorner : ”Bodies in urban spaces" by Willie Dorner
Ka fai : “what i think about when i think about dancing” in Attakkalari Festival, Bangalore
Nuni Lazaga : "To dream or not to dream” Gati Dance Festival, New Delhi.
Michael Keleminis: “Abhilash and Caroline” India Tour
Ana Macrae: Sead , Salzburg
Jonathan Burrows : Mentor at Dancewebeurope scholarship program
Reinhild Hoffman: Mentor at Pro Choreo Laboratory : Zurich
Nancy Stark Smith : Mentor at Arlequi , Girona , Spain
Bart Van den Eynde : Mentor during Advanced performance and scenography studies