"As an artist I see everything from daily movement, dance, choreography, political behaviors, acting, music, frequencies, cooking, eating, communicating, bringing people together, and simply anything that moves a thought within you, as movement."
_Peeling My Purple Onion is a unique artistic research and concept developed by Amisha Kumra, expressed in her experiences of Indian traditonal dance, contemporary and cultural dances hiphop and house. This process reflects her journey to "peel away" taught movements and discover personal expression rooted in her cultural heritage and global experiences.
"By growing up as a child of the Indian diaspora in Norway and later traveling across continents, I have created an intercultural depth of movement.
I feel an urgency to understand how my own culture can create a consciousness and deeper understanding of my connection to the hiphop and house culture to further develop my personal authentic movement.
I aim to do this by physically and theoretically researching the similarities and differences between these cultures and Indian traditional styles as a foundation of my choreographic movement vocabulary.
I have been taught to move in specific ways in many styles and situations. I am now diving into finding my expression but also sharing tools I discover along the way by merging my background, connections and cultures. I aim to create space for diaspora identities, unrepresented cultures and move unapologetically in our society.”
"As an artist I see everything from daily movement, dance, choreography, political behaviors, acting, music, frequencies, cooking, eating, communicating, bringing people together, and simply anything that moves a thought within you, as movement."
1. Involves changing position or going from one place to another, for example dance.
3. Everything which you do or plan to do during a period of time.
2. A gradual change in attitude, opinion, or policy.
4. Is also a group of people who share the same beliefs, ideas, or aims.
“What tools can we use in order to navigate between _Balancing and _OffBalancing in movement?”
In _Peeling My Purple Onion Amisha focuses on stripping down pre-taught movements to access raw, personal expressions of dance, revealing her inner dialogue with ancestral knowledge.
Using specific chakra frequencies (128-972 Hz), Amisha's performances become meditative explorations.
The vibrations guide the body's movement, creating immersive experiences for the audience.
By merging the traditions of Indian classical dance like kathak with modern forms like hip-hop and house, Amisha creates a space where these cultures dialogue through movement.
Amisha's choreography revolves around negotiating between balancing ancestral movements and off-balancing through improvisation to find a personal identity.
Discover Amisha Kumra’s captivating world of sensory performances in first layers, Fr3quency, onion, and hourglass—a series of works in progress that bridge culture, memory, and movement.
These chakra frequencies are integral to Peeling My Purple Onion, driving the connection between body, sound, and emotion. By resonating with specific chakras, the dance evolves into a spiritual and physical journey.
In _first layers, Amisha Kumra transforms her 2023-2024 journey through Brazil, India, Paris, the Netherlands, Germany, and Oslo into a 40-minute sensory experience. Inviting the audience to remove their shoes and taste cleansing fennel seeds, she leads them into a dark, smoke-filled room, scattered with rice, incense, and hanging Indian fabrics, while low frequencies pulse through the space. Using a live loop station and microphone, Kumra layers soundscapes from her travels with kathak bols and hip-hop beats, merging movement and memory. Through this immersive setting, first layers blurs the line between performer and audience, creating a shared journey of cultural memory and connection.
In Fr3quency, Amsterdam-based movers MoseyMozz and CruisingNino, and Misha delve into the intersections of hip hop culture and embodied frequencies. With Amisha Kumra’s research in _peeling my purple onion as a foundation, they strip away layers of learned movement to reveal the body’s authentic, internal rhythms.Guided by a Hertz scale ranging from 128 to 972, they explore the impact of specific frequencies on the body’s chakras, sparking a dialogue between movement and vibration. As the dancers respond to these frequencies, a shared groove emerges, resonating within and between their physical forms. Rooted in a choreographic algorithm rather than a set score, Fr3quency evolves organically, allowing the performers to react in real-time with live music. The piece unfolds as an open-ended conversation—a dynamic exchange of echoes between the vibrations around the body masses, revealing an intimate exploration of energy and connection to space and time.
Amisha Kumra and researcher Ciro M. Goudsmit, explores the navigation between taught and ancestral movement in _onion in real time interaction with the audience and contact mics in the space that generates sounds. Ciro and Amisha communicate with each other through chakra frequencies and the rhythms of kathak, hiphop and house. Join them on a journey where the awareness from the breathing techniques pranayama is the driving force between live music and dance.
In _hourglass, Amisha Kumra and Gloria Lucia Isabella navigate the essence and power of feminine energy within the masculine energy-dominated hiphop and house dance cultures. Reflecting on their journeys as students of predominantly male mentors, they delve into questions of identity, strength, and authenticity based on the research_peeling my purple onion by Amisha Kumra. Through movement, they seek to uncover what it means to express a feminine perspective on stage, challenging traditional dynamics and carving out space for their voices within the culture. This piece invites the audience into their exploration, as they reclaim and redefine their place in the rhythms and roots of house dance.
In _hourglass, Amisha Kumra and Gloria Lucia Isabella navigate their movement within house dance cultures. Reflecting on their journeys as students, they delve into questions of identity, strength, and authenticity based on the research_peeling my purple onion by Amisha Kumra.
Through movement, they seek to uncover what it means to express their perspective on stage. This piece invites the audience into their exploration, as they play with rhythms from kathak and roots of house dance.
Choreographer: Amisha Kumra
Movers/Researchers: Amisha Kumra and Gloria Lucia Isabella
Production: Soul Session Oslo
“In “_peeling my purple onion” together with researcher Ciro M. Goudsmit, Kumra explores the navigation between taught and ancestral movement. They communicate with each other through chakra frequencies and the rhythms of kathak, hiphop and house.
Join them on a journey where the awareness from the breathing techniques pranayama is the driving force between live music and dance.
Concept, researcher, choreographer: Amisha Kumra
Musician and researcher: Ciro Goudsmit
Production: Theater aan de Rijn
In Fr3quency, Amsterdam-based movers MoseyMozz and CruisingNino, and Misha delve into the intersections of hip hop culture and embodied frequencies.
With Amisha Kumra’s research in _peeling my purple onion as a foundation, they strip away layers of taught movement to reveal the body’s authentic, internal rhythms.
Guided by a Hertz scale ranging from 128 to 972, they explore the impact of specific frequencies on the body’s chakras, sparking a dialogue between movement and vibration. As the dancers respond to these frequencies, a shared groove emerges, resonating within and between their physical forms.
Rooted in a choreographic algorithm rather than a set score, Fr3quency evolves organically, allowing the performers to react in real-time with live music. The piece unfolds as an open-ended conversation—a dynamic exchange of echoes between the vibrations around the body masses, revealing an intimate exploration of energy and connection to space and time.
Concept, researcher, choreographer: Amisha Kumra
Movers: Amisha Kumra and MoseyMozz
Music: CruisingNino and Ciro Goudsmit
Production: DIP Paradiso, Pact platform, Soul session Oslo and Rommen scene.
Year: 2024
In _first layers, Amisha Kumra transforms her 2023-2024 journey through Brazil, India, Paris, the Netherlands, Germany, and Oslo into a 40-minute sensory experience. Inviting the audience to remove their shoes and taste cleansing fennel seeds, she leads them into a dark, smoke-filled room, scattered with rice, incense, and hanging Indian fabrics, while low frequencies pulse through the space. Using a live loop station and microphone, Kumra layers soundscapes from her travels with kathak bols and hip-hop beats, merging movement and memory. Through this immersive setting, first layers blurs the line between performer and audience, creating a shared journey of cultural memory and connection.
Concept, researcher, choreographer: Amisha Kumra
Music: Amisha Kumra
Production: Lieve de Boer
Year: 2024
Residency Barnes Crossing, Cologne.
2021: “Meg til deg” is a solo created in 2020 and performed in spring 2023 in the Barnes Crossing Soloduo competition. This solo is based on a choreographic algorithm (_Mario Lopes) focusing on specific body parts, hands, feet, expressions and katha (story telling). The dramaturgy is built together with the music and with the movement simply expresses me to you on its rawness and purity of the moment. The aim is not to portray different styles of dance but rather share what comes in the moment with the algorithm.
Choreographed and performed in National opera and ballet of Amsterdam "Adios is about the ambiguity of alienation. In the opera, we follow an individual who is faced with the internal struggle between these two sentiments.
Finding himself alienated from a group, he embarks on a reaction on whether to find a way to adapt or see the experience as liberating.
When, finally, he decides to try and join the group he is confronted with the necessity to leave something behind in the process of belonging." The choreography is based on an algorithm that allows the movers to react in real time with live music.
Concept and research: Amisha Kumra
Movers and researchers: Mélie Favre, Izabella Maduro, Kelly Sheila Bigirindavyi, Hamiro Lee Joannes, Isabel Nguyen Dao, René Twizeye Mungu Bizimana, Tim Brügger,Musicians: Shana Raine Brown, Leonardo LucibelliVideographer and edit: Charlie Smeets
Powered by: Das research funding "Decolonizing the mind to me means to deconstruct thoughts, preferences and values by addressing, understanding, confronting, re-experiencing patterns in all types of scenarios.
In this process we researched how moments from our childhood are still present in our day to day decision making and how that reflects our decisions while moving.
Together with movers with different cultural background, heritage, social environments, ages, genders and languages we planted a small seed in how this movement research can be developed further.
We were busy with recalling memories regarding communication in relations from our childhood.
How did our parents talk to us? How did they compare us or punish us if we did something wrong? What music did we listen to as children? How did these influences create certain realities and colonial ways of thinking?
The goal was not to create a healing therapy, but rather find a new engine to a movement vocabulary which comes from within as a part of the _peeling my purple onion research.
We had a beautiful process together and it was captured by Charlie Smeets, parts of it has been edited into a short documentary."
Researcher with Vidya Deshpande student of Birjo Maharaj in Kathak in Nashik, India at Abhijat Academy.
Researcher in artist in residency in Sertao Negro, 35th Biennale São Paulowith Mario Lopes, Dalton Paula, Juliana Dos Santos and Gamma MamaDi
My grandfather born in 1934 fled from todays Pakistan to todays India during the partition in 1947. The British colonizers created war between hindus and muslims to show their power and this resulted in a huge war dividing the country.
This solo is based on the stories of my grandfather who was only 13 years old. The performance embodies an improvisation of the train travel based on a choreographic algorithm, expressing frustration of leaving a whole life behind to arrive in a new space. The expression plays with the awkwardness of sitting on a train by interacting with the audience, activating the sensorial through smells of incense, live music from kathak bells in the dark and movement vocabulary of kathak and contemporary.
Creation and premiere: February 2022 Amsterdam
Music: Original audio, created live on stage with loop station and with old recordings of OPT
Perfomance and choreography: Amisha Kumra
Mohe raang do laal expresses the love between Krishna and Radha in hinduism. Laal is the nickname of Krishna and also means the color red in hindi , which signifies love. The mudras and movements expresses Radhas desire singing “color/paint me red” reffering to the love from Krishna while being executed to advanced traditional kathak foorwork with bells.It also has a reference to the hindu color festival holi which celebrates the beginning of spring season and is a sign of flowers blossiming and the nature coming to life after the winter cold .
Creation: December 2017-January 2018
Premiere: February 2018 Black box theater, Oslo
Perfomance and choreography: Amisha Kumra
Music: Mohe raang do laal- Pandit Birju Maharaj and Sherpa Goshal
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