Congratulations to our Samānatā Artists

Following some very strong applications, we found it impossible to choose between two equally exciting but different artists. So, for the first time, we have split the award and would like to say a huge congratulations to:

Shiva Raichandani (they/them)

Shiva is a multidisciplinary non-binary performance artist and BAFTA-nominated filmmaker. With a life spanning Hong Kong, Dubai, Indonesia, India, and London, their practice draws on a rich mix of cultures and creative traditions, including formal training in Bharatanatyam and Bollywood dance.

The project we are supporting is OFFBEAT, a Bollywood-inspired theatrical dance play about the stories that our bodies carry. Through the world of dance, the piece explores gendered roles, cultural inheritance and the politics of visibility through one of South Asia’s most joyful and performative spaces, the dance floor.

Shiva says: ‘My immense gratitude to Jaivant Patel Company, Bradford Arts Centre, and South East Dance for backing a story that feels deeply personal, urgent, and necessary. I’m fascinated by the contradiction of finding freedom through movement in a gender non-conforming body that is simultaneously watched, judged, and policed. I want to interrogate femmephobia, cultural inheritance, and the roles we learn to play, and ask who we might become when we stop performing for others and allow ourselves to fall a little offbeat.’

Hamshya Rajkumar (she/they) 

Hamshya is an interdisciplinary artist working across performance, sculpture, ecology and seed. By situating the body outside the constraints of binary structures, they explore our human place in a world where ‘Nature’ is separate, dominated and objectified.

During her residency, Hamshya will be exploring ecological grief, rage and solastalgia through a mythic dominatrix similar to the stories of gods we find in Indian classical dance. 

Hamshya says: ‘I will apply BDSM to queer my old Bharatnatyam training into a dance form that feels more aligned to me, to navigate the complex love we hold for a toxic Earth. I am very excited to be held by Jaivant Patel as a dedicated space for queer south Asian performers, and it feels like a sanctuary like laboratory to explore my ideas.’ 

As our Samānatā (meaning equality) artists for 2026, both will access a package of support which includes commissioning funds, studio space, mentoring from Jaivant Patel and the opportunity to share their work, all starting this Autumn. 

This is the fourth year of the Samānatā commission and South East Dance are a new partner for 2026.