Theatre announces new Associate Artist

The Arena Theatre is delighted to announce Wolverhampton-based independent dance artist, choreographer and cultural producer Jaivant Patel as their first Associate Artist.

Jaivant is the Artistic Director of his own company Jaivant Patel Dance (JPD) which exists to communicate his British-Asian identity, voice his experiences and challenge complexities of inherited notions, perceptions and stereotypes. Jaivant is also Artist-In-Residence at MAC Birmingham and a member of the board of directors for Dance4.

Jaivant has produced sell out shows at the Arena Theatre for four years, in turn diversifying the theatre’s audience and providing a platform to welcome patrons who had not attended shows previously. His annual celebrations for the Indian festivals of Diwali and Holi, in particular, have become a firm favourite with local communities in The Black Country.  As part of ArtFest 2017, Jaivant also produced the highly successful Samarpan event, an evening that celebrated Indian classical dance in the UK. His next event as cultural producer will be on Saturday 11^th November in celebration of Diwali, which also coincides with the UK-India Year of Culture 2017, marking 70 years of Indian Independence.

A graduate of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Jaivant has become widely recognised as a future leader in the arts and was selected in 2015 for both Dance UK's Dancers Mentoring and Choreographers Observerships Programmes, working with Paul Russ and Shobana Jeyasingh.

Jaivant will be sharing research and development entitled YAATRA, working towards a full evening of work that explores his relationship with personal faith and spirituality, in parallel with his own experiential journey in dance. The research is provoked by Jaivant’s experiences as a homosexual man of dual heritage. The sharing will take place at Arena Theatre on Wednesday 29^th November.

In the local community, Jaivant runs and is also Artistic Director of a voluntary non-profit organisation called Jai Jashn Dance (JJD). JJD delivers Bollywood-based community dance classes promoting the cultural dance heritage of India. The success of the organisation has seen a youth performance group being formed by its members. Recently Jai Jashn Dance was an official recipient of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Award for Voluntary Service 2017.