Pravaha returns for its second edition at the Bangalore International Centre in collaboration with JSW Group, presenting 'The Body As Space' — an eight-day festival exploring how sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste shape our understanding of the world.
After its debut in 2024, Pravaha returns for its second edition, with the Bangalore International Centre in collaboration with JSW Group presenting a sensory-led exploration titled The Body As Space.
Scheduled from 22nd February to 1st March, this year’s edition invites audiences on an immersive journey through the five senses — sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste — examining how each one shapes our perception of the world. By foregrounding sensory experience, Pravaha seeks to deepen our understanding of how we inhabit environments, connect with others, and construct meaning, reminding us that perception is deeply embodied.
Through a series of installations, performances, and workshops the eight day long festival examines and gives visitors the opportunity to see the different intersections where the senses meet. From a scented walk through the histories of Indian perfume that is open all through the festival to a workshop that takes you on a sensorial walk through the connection between coffee and land called Grounded: A Food and Body Coffee Lab, the festival expands our understanding of our own senses.
Bangalore International Centre (BIC) will also be hosting live performances that echo the festival’s sensory focus. Call of the Flute brings together Pichwai paintings, Kuchipudi dance, and flute in a layered dialogue between visual art and movement. Renowned theatre company, Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research will also be bringing their current travelling play ‘A Woman or Not To Be’, a reimagination of William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ from a feminist lens on 27th February.
Finally, the festival will close with a rendition of Kalidasa’s Abhijnanashakuntalam, staged through the ancient art of Kutiyattam. Recognised as one of the oldest surviving theatrical traditions in the world, Kutiyattam is a classical performance form from Kerala that combines elements of ancient Sanskrit theatre with Koothu, blending elaborate gesture, stylised expression, music, and ritual.
The Body As Space shows us that our senses are active memory boxes — shaping identities and mediating how we move through the world. It can be easy to feel as though we exist and live our lives outside of our bodies, but this festival reminds us how pertinent it is to take stock of our senses and what they do for us. Our bodies have never been mere spectators in our lives, but conduits through which we form our understanding of the world.
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