Kesha Raithatha is a dancer and choreographer who embodies Kathak and Contemporary movement. She creates work that is rich in detail and experimentally reconsiders contemporary South Asian dance. Her curiosity and exposure to a wide range of movement training informs and invigorates her dance-making vocabulary. Kesha trains and freelances between India and the UK and is one of the Associate Directors for Aakash Odedra Company.
Kesha is extremely keen to utilise her position in the arts to generate a constant flow of creativity between artists globally alongside making work that is relevant and taboo to the current social and political climate. She is also passionate about exploring her dance-making in a way which allows the viewer to have a surreal and otherworldly experience.
What are you most excited about joining the new group of Work Place artists?
Taking my dance making and performance to the next level. Seeing the expansion of my ideas through rich collaboration and finding new ways of working. I am excited to work alongside the amazing team at The Place and meet like-minded artists who I know will inspire and motivate me to take bigger creative risks. I look forward to seeing a strong, significant shift in my artistry.
Where do you seek or find inspiration for your work?
I think the best teacher is life itself. If you live through its ups and downs, in all its dimensions with maximum presence, there is a message and a story to be told in everything. Through travelling and unconscious exploration, I am inspired by the beauty of the small details that surround us, and make us. I am deeply fascinated by the human condition, our history and all the bodies of energy that we exist in.
What does it mean for you to be an artist in this day and age?
I have deep gratitude and count myself very lucky to be considered an artist in this day and age. The constant, innate curiosity you live withholds a strong responsibility. Artists hold the power to heal and through movement and voice the state of mind of the public. I often think of myself and all artists as archaeologists; uprooting lost stories and fragments of identity.
Today, access to incredible talent is in the palm of your hand. The upside to technology is the ability to share your art and nurture the state of mind of the masses.
I am grateful to make art in a time that has the capacity to inform, influence and resonate with the collective.