Our Bureau
New York, NY
The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI), an expansive program providing New York City choreographers and dance companies with creative residencies on CUNY college campuses, announces the premiere of barkha patel’s new solo work icchā at Tribeca Performing Arts Center (199 Chambers Street, New York, NY 10007) on Friday and Saturday, September 25 and 26, 2026, at 7:30PM. General admission is $40, with student tickets available for $30.
icchā is a 60-minute solo dance work by Princess Grace Award-winning artist barkha patel that explores the body as a vessel for ancestral memory and inherited longing. Often, the things we desire are not entirely our own. Matrilineal histories are frequently unnamed or absorbed into patriarchal narratives; icchā asks: who do we carry within us?
Drawing on the Hindu concept of vasanas—unfulfilled longings that survive physical death and are passed through bloodlines as living icchā, or desires—the work centers on barkha, who is visited in a dream by her maternal ancestors. They choose her to give form to the desires they were unable to express or fulfill: desires shaped by survival, loss, intimacy, violence, and the denial of dance and embodied selfhood.
Weaving original music and set design with traditional and contemporary kathak and the Gujarati folk form garba, icchā imagines movement as a means of remembrance, release, and return.
icchā is choreographed and performed by barkha patel, with original music composed by Sushma Soma and Samiullah Khan.
icchā has been created with the support of a Princess Grace Foundation Special Projects Grant, Princess Grace Foundation Dance Award, AAPI residency with Topaz Arts, and a CUNY Dance Initiative residency at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center.
barkha patel was a 2024 NDP Finalist Grant Award recipient, made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project with funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation in support of CODA and to address continued sustainability needs.
About The Artist
barkha patel is a kathak artist, choreographer, educator and Artistic Director of barkha dance company. She has trained in kathak with Guru Rachna Sarang and continues her training with Swati Sinha and Dheerendra Tiwari.
barkha’s work has been presented at venues such as Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Little Island, 92Y, and Chelsea Factory among others. She received the 2023 Juried Bessie Award through which she received support from the New York State Dance Force in 2024 to tour a full-evening work ahaM | Maha to the Reg Lenna Center, 171 Cedar Arts, and University of Rochester.
barkha has been recognized with a Princess Grace Dance Award (2024), selected as a finalist for NEFA’s NDP grant (2024), and was a Harlem Stage WaterWorks Fellow (2024). She has received residencies with Movement Research, NYS Choreographic Institute, and Topaz Arts. She completed her first India tour in ‘25 in collaboration with Canadian based kathak artist Tanveer Alam, presenting at venues such as Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Center (Mumbai), India Habitat Centre (Delhi), Medai (Blr), Hyderabad Literature Festival and Aadhyam Textiles (Hyderabad). barkha and Tanveer premiered a new work for Toronto’s Fall For Dance North in 2025.
About The CUNY Dance Initiative
The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI) was developed in response to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s 2010 report, “We Make Do,” which cited how destabilizing the shortage of affordable rehearsal space in New York City is to the dance sector. A successful pilot supporting residencies on four CUNY campuses in 2013 led to CDI’s formal launch in 2014. Since then, CDI has become a key player in New York City’s performing arts ecosystem, leading a consortium of 14 CUNY colleges and four arts organizations to host 20+ residencies for NYC choreographers and dance companies each year. Over the past 12 years, CDI has granted 300 residencies to emerging and established choreographers, providing invaluable resources to artists, while enhancing CUNY students’ education and cultural experiences.
The CUNY Dance Initiative receives major support from The Howard Gilman Foundation, The George S. Kaufman Charitable Foundation, and The Mertz Gilmore Foundation. Additional support is provided by the SHS Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.
About Tribeca Performing Arts Center
Tribeca PAC is located at 199 Chambers Street on the Borough of Manhattan Community College campus, and is accessible via the 1/2/3, A/C/E, R, and PATH trains. For more information and added events, please visit website. Tickets for events may be purchased online.