Garage Arts Project presents Artist Showcase 2025 featuring Jiva Dance from New York. They are a critically acclaimed dance company based in NYC and is under the artistic direction of Sonali Skandan.  Jiva Dance strives to present work that is inclusive, universal and challenging and explores the intersections of classicism, modernity and experimentalism.  Jiva Dance holds the belief that tradition is a continuum of evolution and aims to invigorate classical works with a freshness and unique voice. 

Opening the evening is our Dallas-based artist Lauren Kravitz with Odes, a dance piece reflecting how nothing is ever truly a solo. Through this work, Lauren embodies three significant mentors and collaborators who have shaped her artistry, offering a heartfelt thank-you, a reflection, and an exploration of identity.

The Four Horsemen by Jiva Dance is a highly innovative Indian classical dance production that explores symbolism from the story of the Apocalypse through Indian classical dance, music, and Sanskrit poetry. The work centers around four vignettes of life and death through four female protagonists who stand for universal human experience.

 The stories—a woman shackled to the life of a courtesan (conquest), a woman reminiscing the night she spent with her lover who is at war (war), a mother searching for nourishment for her child in the midst of a sandstorm (famine), and finally, a woman at the end of her life recalling memories that span youthful joy to hardship and loss (death)—are touchingly timely.

Choreographers Statement:
The Four Horsemen is a fresh new work that looks at the here and now – stories that describe women living in this world. It is a series of four vignettes of four women; telling tales of disempowerment, horror, anxiety, fear, reminiscence, leading to hope, contentment, resignation, and defiance. The work is based on the metaphors from the story of the apocalypse, which recounts the end of times, as four horses come as harbingers of terror and destruction. In our work, these stories take on a more personal and human note, with vestiges of pain as well as hope.

The Four Horsemen is a journey that has taken me to question my motivation in the art, and the desire to express stories that are new, yet felt through generations the world over. When writing the script and developing the content, I have tried to keep the ideas very human, very personal, and very universal. We strived to create a highly communicative work that we hope will resonate with one and all. I am grateful for a team that remained open-minded and that fully immersed themselves into the work at every level.

-Sonali Skandan, Artistic Director, Choreographer

This event is in part funded by the City of Plano Major Arts Grant