WHO WE ARE

Photo credit: Estefani Correia (It's the Key Photography)

‘Our communities are like seismic plates shifting and forming new blocs –a mosaic made up of the many shards of our identities, glued together by the sweat and blood of our protesting, rebelling, dreaming, scheming, and organising together, across the arbitrary borders that fail to contain us.

It is beautiful, and fluid. This is what liberation looks like.

We buoy each other. Separately, we endure, persist, stay alive.

Together, we overcome and thrive.’

- “Greater than the sum of our parts“ By Nada Elia

Theiyā Arts is an organisation with a non-hierarchal structure, a collaborative working model and a diverse programme that centres both the needs of our beneficiaries (diverse demographics across all ages and abilities) and the sustainable development of South Asian Arts in Scotland.

The mission of Theiyā Arts is to foster a vibrant, inclusive arts community that thrives on diversity and representation, providing access and exposure to historically underrepresented art forms and making South Asian Arts an integral part of the Scottish dance ecosystem.

Theiyā Arts is run by a core team of 5 dance artists of South Asian dance forms, each identifying as Movement facilitators and co-choreographers from diverse ethnic and professional backgrounds. The core team employ a Feminist leadership model that is grounded in collaborative, non-hierarchal and fluid approaches to leadership and management.

Our Story

Theiyā Arts was founded by Karen Watts and Gaby Albornoz in 2019, and in the first year the focus was on entirely community engagement, working creatively with people of different ages and abilities from diverse backgrounds. When the UK went into lockdown in 2020, we responded to the demand for more wellbeing activities, and we learned to run our creative activities in a different way. A strength of Theiyā Arts is our ability to respond and adapt in a flexible and reflective way. Since then, the evolution and expansion of our organisation has been organic and intuitive, led by the people we work with and for, and influenced by political, economic and social forces. Nandini and Himadri joined Theiya Arts in 2021, and Thara in 2022. We have an array of skill sets within the core team of Theiyā Arts, and this strengthens our ability to respond effectively the world around us.