THIS IS DANCE: An Evening With Vidya Patel

Vidya Patel is back in Birmingham on Saturday 21 November, performing at The Studio at The Rep. It's a homecoming for her — she was born and raised here, and this evening marks her return to the city.

Patel is a UK-based dance artist, choreographer, and performer whose work is shaped by her cultural heritage and her experiences of belonging. She trained in Kathak from a young age, and that classical Indian dance form remains at the core of what she does; she merges it with contemporary movement, pulling in music, poetry, and the visual arts to explore identity, memory, nature, well-being, and empowerment. It's a wide reach for one evening, and the way she weaves those threads together is what gives her work its particular pull.

She's been working at a high level for a while. In 2015, she represented the South Asian category on the inaugural BBC Young Dancer, and since then she's performed at Sadler's Wells, the Royal Opera House, Southbank Centre, Tate Modern, and the V&A. Her collaborations run the gamut of the dance world, from Sir Richard Alston, Gary Clarke, and Hetain Patel to Thick & Tight, Orchestral Qawwali, Sampad, and Akademi, alongside composer Shammi Pithia and designer Shankho Chaudhuri. She's also made work for BalletBoyz and the National Ballet Company of Jersey. The critical side has kept pace, too: her performances have earned three National Dance Critics Circle Awards nominations, the Michele Fox Choreographic Award, and the Vic-Wells Award in 2023.

It's a single-billed evening, so the focus stays on her and the work she's bringing to the stage. The performance starts at 7:45pm at The Studio at The Rep, and tickets are £13.50.