Rovaco Dance Festival 2026

Two-Day Festival of Contemporary & Indian Dance, Live Music, Queer Theater, and South-Asian Hospitality, Produced by Rovaco Dance Company!

After seven successful Rovaco Dance Party events, Rovaco Dance Company presents its first Rovaco Dance Festival, featuring two unique and diverse programs of contemporary dance-theater by Rovaco, as well as live music, theater, and dance performances by guest-commissioned artists. Each night begins with an immersive pre-show social, inspired by South-Asian hospitality, where you can enjoy complimentary homemade Indian snacks and drinks prepared by the resident chef.

Event Venues

Brooklyn Ballet & The Mark O’Donnell Theater
160 Schermerhorn St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Event Schedule *

5:00 PM | Immersive Social with Refreshments
6:30 PM | Performances with host Rohan Bhargava

*All attendees must check in with the box office at Brooklyn Ballet by 6:30 PM

Saturday, August 29th: Program A

Contemporary Dance: Sex Robot (Excerpt from KAMA) by Rovaco
Live Music: Harmonium, Trumpet, Vocals, & Guitar by Sonny Singh & Miwi La Lupa
Bharatanatyam & Hip-Hop Dance: Talam by Ishita Mili / IMGE Dance
Contemporary Dance-Theater: Ghoonghat (Work-in-Progress) by Rovaco
Sunday, August 30th: Program B

Contemporary Dance: Madaari (The Monkey Master) by Rovaco
Live Music: Sitar, Tabla, & Guitar by Compass Trio (Galen Passen, Tripp Dudley, James Labrosse)
Theater: the host, the traveler, the mother by writer Hasan ul Haq (staged reading, presented in partnership with National Queer Theater’s Criminal Queerness Studio)
Contemporary Dance-Theater: Ghoonghat (Work-in-Progress) by Rovaco
Complimentary Indian Street-Food & Drinks

Prepared & hosted by Rovaco’s Resident Chef Ashmita Biswas

Rovaco Dance Company Credits:

Choreography: Rohan Bhargava in collaboration with the dancers
Resident Composer: Saúl Guanipa
Resident Dramaturg & Theater Curator: Mahima Saigal
Dancers: Nico Gonzales, Devika Chandnani, Karma Chuki, Isabele Rosso, Laila Garrett, & Connor Hestwood

About: Rovaco Dance Company

Rovaco Dance Company was founded in New York City in 2015 by Rohan Bhargava. They produce genre-defying, multidisciplinary work that blends Eastern and Western forms, including Bollywood, Bhangra, ballet, street jazz, floorwork, contemporary dance, and Indian street theater.

Rovaco’s work centers queerness and Indianness, both celebrating and critically interrogating the practice of these identities. Through open dialogue, a collaborative process, and presentation opportunities, we empower queer, South-Asian, BIPOC, immigrant, and contemporary artists to research sex and sexuality, relationship dynamics, addiction under capitalism, gender and cultural norms, and the vestiges of colonial oppression.

The company has received annual funding from the Brooklyn Arts Council from 2021 to 2026. It was awarded the Dance Advancement Fund 2022-23 from Dance/NYC, Choreography Pilot Program 2024 from Danse Mirage Foundation, Brooklyn Org’s Microgrant 2026, and NYSCA’s Support for Artists 2025 & Support for Organizations 2026.

About: Guest Performing Artists

Sonny Singh & Miwi La Lupa are a Brooklyn-based duo that makes uplifting South Asian diasporic music drawing from the Sikh, Sufi, and radical Bhakti traditions. JazzTimes calls Sonny’s music “vibrant, ebullient, and energized…a prayer for our ailing world.” Miwi is set to release his sixth solo album this year. The two musicians play together as part of the Bhangra Liberation Orchestra.

Ishita Mili is a Bengali American choreographer and iconoclast. She founded IMGE Dance to unravel her cultural roots with diverse artists. Ishita was nominated for the Bessie’s Outstanding Breakout Choreographer ‘25, is a SOZO Fellow, and has taught the IMGE methodology at Princeton, Duke, Gonzaga and across the US and abroad.

National Queer Theater (NQT) is a non-profit organization based in NYC, uplifting the queer community through visionary theater to celebrate free expression in the U.S. and around the world. NQT’s Criminal Queerness Studio (CQS), is an educational program that develops short plays by writers from countries where LGTBQ+ people face criminalization, censorship, displacement, and violence.

Hasan ul Haq’s play ‘the host, the traveler, the mother’, developed through CQS, will be presented at the festival with Director Adam Odsess-Rubin, Founding Artistic Director of NQT, Associate Director and actor Mahima Saigal, and actors Arjun Dhawan & Fatima A. Maan. Hasan is a Karachi-born playwright, performer, and theatre educator, whose work draws on memory, nostalgia, everyday life, queerness, family, and culture.

Compass Trio is composed of guitar (James Labrosse), tabla (Tripp Dudley), and sitar (Galen Passen) and integrates these deeper connections of tradition and music into its interweaving forms, reflections, and improvisations. Each piece is a truly original creation, borne out of the three musicians’ individual creative expressions while being deeply rooted in the extensive traditions that they have studied.

About: Resident Chef

Ashmita Biswas is a Brooklyn-based dancer, educator, and movement therapist. She has been the resident chef with Rovaco Dance Company since 2021! Ashmita currently works with Cucala Dance Company and Notes In Motion, exploring the power of movement for expression and healing. She is passionate about the culinary arts, finding creativity and connection in both the studio and the kitchen.