Freshly returned from KiN’s regional tour to Margaret River, Albany and Geraldton, we caught up with KiN‘s creator and performer Isha Sharvani to hear about the trip, the show’s origins, and the affecting nature of the work.
KiN is a true story of one’s family connection through music and dance, exploring the passing on of tradition and its transformation across generations. Tell us a little bit about the work and how it was first conceived?
ISHA: In 2020, Circus WA and Sally Richardson put out a call for a series of new solo developments during COVID. I was fortunate enough to receive one of these developments. Using the Malkhamb rope as my medium, I explored themes of connection and acceptance of the cycle of life. The response to the solo was incredibly encouraging, giving me the confidence to keep developing the work and allowing me to grow simultaneously as an artist and a self-producer.
In 2021, I received a grant that allowed Russell (choreographer and performer in KiN) and I to explore the meeting points between Eastern and Western movement languages. Over eight weeks, we taught each other our respective practices, creating a shared space and grounding for new ways for our forms to intersect. In 2022, my mother entered the work as the family matriarch, embodying the passing of lineage, tradition, and knowledge across generations. That shift transformed KiN from an abstract exploration of movement and concept into a deeply personal family story.
By 2023, we had 50 minutes of original choreography and faced the daunting task of finding someone to present a newly created work. After pitching at Circuitwest’s WA Showcase, Andrew Frith offered to present the work, and we premiered KiN on 24 May 2024 at Queens Park Theatre in Geraldton.
During this time we presented and documented the work while witnessing the extraordinary audience responses—not only to the performance itself but also to the extensive community engagement tied into the project.
Thanks to the successful premiere season of KiN, and the generosity of Andrew Frith and the entire team at Queens Park Theatre, we secured funding that led to an international tour of India in 2025.
KiN was invited to perform at two major dance festivals in New Delhi and Mumbai, as well as a special performance at the residence of the Australian High Commissioner to India, Ambassador Philip Green. Every opportunity to perform KiN has allowed us to keep refining it. The story has become more nuanced, the choreography has evolved, and the work continues to grow with every audience.
What has been a personal highlight for you in working with your family, either during the creation of KiN or while performing the work on tour?
Working with my partner, Russell Thorpe, has been a real highlight. Creating KiN together has deeply enriched our relationship and given us the opportunity to make something truly original—something born out of time, trust and love. Our different movement backgrounds challenged us to find a shared language, and that creative journey has been as meaningful as the performance itself.
Touring with our whole family has also been one of the craziest, most amazing, and deeply rewarding experiences I could have imagined. The making of KiN has been a true labour of love, created collaboratively by our family. To see how deeply the work and our community engagements have resonated with people across continents has been a collective highlight for all of us. It shows us that the message at the heart of the work has been received.
Audience responses to KiN have been filled with admiration, deep connection, and many have said they would love to experience the performance again. What do you think is the driving force behind people’s connection to the work?
I believe people connect to KiN because it’s very real and personal. Audiences can feel that authenticity. While it tells the story of our family, there’s something universal within it. The work explores the cycle of life—something every one of us experiences in our own way—and speaks of experiences that transcend culture, language, and geography.
I have had many meaningful conversations with people after performances, who tell me they saw something of themselves in our story, or that it reminded them of their grandmother, their parents, or someone they love. As creators, that was always our hope. We wanted KiN to spark conversations and encourage people to reflect on their own families, their own heritage, and the people who have shaped who they are. When audiences leave the theatre carrying those reflections with them, that’s incredibly rewarding.
During the recent Geraldton performance at Queens Park Theatre, you invited Nadia Priolo & Dancers to perform Shifting Ground, featuring young dancers aged 11–17. What was it like to share the stage and why was it important for you to support local artists as part of the tour?
Sharing the stage with Nadia Priolo and the young dancers from Shifting Ground was incredibly important to us. As artists, we believe that whenever there is an opportunity to create a platform for local artists to present their work, we have a responsibility to do so. Inviting local artists to share the stage isn’t just about presenting another performance—it creates genuine connection with the community we’re visiting. It grounds us in that place, allowing us to share space, stories and conversations, rather than simply arriving, performing and leaving.
Watching those young dancers perform with such commitment and joy was inspiring. Their energy was infectious, and it was a privilege to celebrate their work alongside our own. It also meant that local audiences could see artists from their own community represented on the same stage, which creates a real sense of pride and belonging.
Throughout the tour, you reached more than 350 primary school students and connected with over 70 adults through workshops alongside the performances. Why was this exchange such an important part of KiN?
For the KiN regional tour, we designed a comprehensive community engagement program that included 17 different workshops and activities. These ranged from primary school workshops and aerial circus skills to dance, yoga, cultural exchange sessions and First Nations engagement. We wanted to offer experiences that reflected the breadth of what our team could share, while also responding to the unique interests and needs of each community we visited.
For us, the performance is only one part of the tour. In many ways, it’s the cherry on top. The heart of our slow touring model is the time we spend with people—getting to know communities, building trust, creating new relationships and strengthening existing ones. We want our visits to leave a lasting impact, not only through the performance but through genuine exchange.
By the time we stepped onto the stage, we weren’t simply performing for a community—we were performing with an understanding of that community. The performance became a culmination of all the conversations, relationships and exchanges we’d experienced together. In that way, every performance of KiN was slightly different because it carried the spirit of the place and the people who had welcomed us.
KiN toured to Nala Bardip Mia (Margaret River), Albany Entertainment Centre (Albany), and Queens Park Theatre (Geraldton). A Playing WA tour of KiN with CircuitWest and support from the WA Government.
Images by Christopher Young
