Biennale-6: A tryst with an artefact brought to life

Mandeep Raikhy’s installation questions colonial interpretation of Mohenjo-daro’s Dancing Girl figurine

Kochi / December 27, 2025

Kochi, Dec 27: History is often distorted based on the contexts they are written in, written for, to serve the purpose of the time. New Delhi-based dancer and choreographer Mandeep Raikhy attempts to question and deconstruct it through his work, Hallucinations of an Artefact, alluding to the bronze figurine of the ‘Dancing Girl’ of Mohenjo-daro, found in 1926 while excavating Indus Valley Civilization sites.

His installation for the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, curated by Nikhil Chopra with HH Art Spaces, Goa, is featured in SMS Hall, Bazaar Road, Mattancherry.

Questioning the name, given through the colonial gaze of classical Indian dance forms, Raikhy takes the audience on a visual journey by awakening the artefact to life through artificialintelligence (AI). He dances alongside Akanksha Kumari and Manju Sharma, responding to the girl’s movements, and conversing with the viewers as well about fixed forms and notions of history, classical dance, nationality, nudity, and sexuality through the body as site.

“I was told the Tribhanga stance of the ‘Dancing Girl’ was the first evidence of the pose in Indian dance and I wanted to see if I could loosen and reimagine the life of the 4500-year-old, 11-inch figurine frozen in time, and let it evolve in today’s context,” said Raikhy.

The dancing girl moves to the museum as depicted by the three pedestals on the floor, becomes a warrior claimed by some historians, enters a night club, becomes a child, a friend and dancer through the multiple forms in the AI projections on three walls.

“I believe art and culture is a process, always evolving with no conclusion, which led to me conceive this work,” Raikhy said. His installation was augmented by his performances and rehearsals. He will be performing again in February 2026.

As one steps into the room, the ‘Dancing Girl’ comes to life through the AI projection on one wall against the backdrop of ruins, while her journey is depicted on the opposite wall and on two more projections on another wall, with Raikhy and the duo traversing along with her, the way she would, mostly in stiff poses drawn from popular dance, yoga and day-to-day poses, at times disruptive, playful, dancing slowly, fast, even running across befriending, and fighting, making formations on the pedestal and merging, breaking classified forms, to the musical beats of collective memories, the rhythms rising in tempo, oozing with emotions and sensual elements.

Nudity is natural and interpreted in the mind of the beholder. “I found it ridiculous to see the dancing girl draped in a ‘ghagra choli’ for the International Museum Expo in 2023 inaugurated by the Prime Minster, an indication of how her body and our bodies are controlled,” he said.

“For the AI dance, I have been collaborating with Jonathan O’Hear for long and discussed with him about the possibility of giving life to the artefact and he began to see if his figure could learn our movements and we took almost four years to get it done,” said Raikhy.

The movements of the solo black and white nude figure on one wall are juxtaposed with multiple images and postures of the dancing girl’s sojourn, electrocuted, in melted form, in fragments with broken parts against the backdrop of indistinct visuals of modern motifs, depicted in symbolic colours.

The multiple forms and movements are striking and thought-provoking. Finally exhausted, almost questioning what happens in an exhausted body. Repeated at every turn, the movements, and the music amaze, turn chaotic and erotic—stirring thoughts of gender, of love, of creative energy.

Raikhy interacts with viewers and many were seen joining the dance, and becoming the dancing girl, during the rehearsals. “This is the first time we’re having rehearsals, responding afresh to the dancing girl, for the next performance,” he said.

Hallucinations of an Artefact, strikes a chord with this edition’s theme, for the time being.

ENDS                          
 

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