NEW YORK — Baila Society and Navatman will present the world premiere of When the Sun Rises, an evening-length work bringing together salsa, Latin hustle, bharatanatyam and kathak under a single original score, June 26 through 28 at the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater.
It is the second production in the two organizations’ “Roots of Resilience” series and, according to the directors, the first time these four forms have been staged together as a single choreographic and musical work in New York. The score, composed across nearly two years of rehearsal-room collaboration, will be performed live by nine musicians from both traditions.
The piece arrives at a moment when conversations about immigration, cultural belonging and the erasure of minority communities have intensified across the country. When the Sun Rises is structured as a response: a series of movements that trace separation, loss, grief and the slow work of building something together across differences.
“We kept returning to the same question in the studio,” said Ahtoy Juliana, Founder of BAILA Society and co-director of the production. “What does it mean to make work that honors where it comes from, in a moment when so much is being taken from people who look like us, sound like us, and are considered outsiders here? We didn’t want to make the show just about the problem. We wanted to make a show that is the answer.”
Sahasra Sambamoorthi, artistic director and co-founder of Navatman said the collaboration was built deliberately around the concept of digging deeper into the traditions and structure – rather than trying to create something “new”. “We created an original musical composition of Indian and Afro-Cuban motifs. Creating this in this moment in time was more than a bit challenging, but we felt, with every fiber of our being, that it was urgently necessary. Who better to care for our art than those who live and breathe it? And, in doing so, we were able to discover more about our traditions than we could have imagined possible.”
The original score features Lulada Club musicians Andrea Chavarro, Katherine Ocampo and Daniela Serna alongside Ayamey Bell Torriente, Juan Pulido, Radhika Iyer, Shraman Sen and Sanjay Natesan, with compositional consultation from 5-time Grammy nominated percussionist Manuel Marquez and musical direction by Sahasra Sambamoorthi herself.
The work moves through Afro-Cuban rumba and son, flamenco-inflected passages, kathak tabla and tatkaar sequences, bharatanatyam varnam and salsa rhythmic forms, and an extended finale built around the question of what a community looks like when its women, children and elders lead it.
The production runs across three nights. The full-company professional program, When the Sun Rises, performs Friday, June 26 at 8 p.m., Saturday, June 27 at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, June 28 at 3 p.m. A companion program, The Journey Begins, featuring student and emerging dancers from both organizations, performs Saturday, June 27 at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets are $38, $50 and $75 and are available now at navatman.org. When the Sun Rises contains material some viewers may find intense and is not recommended for children under five.
Press tickets and high-resolution rehearsal imagery are available on request.
About Navatman
Founded in 2008, Navatman is a New York–based Indian classical performing arts organization presenting bharatanatyam, kathak and Carnatic vocal work through its professional company and community school. Its founding director, Sahasra Sambamoorthi, has been described in the South Asian arts press as part of a generation reshaping how Indian classical forms are understood and presented in the United States.
About Baila Society
Baila Society is a New York Latin dance organization founded by Ahtoy Juliana, focused on salsa, Latin hustle and the social-dance lineages of the South Bronx and Spanish Harlem. Its work centers on cultural preservation, embodied archival research, and the social and political histories that shaped the music and movement.
About “Roots of Resilience”
When the Sun Rises is the second production in the multi-year “Roots of Resilience” collaboration between Baila Society and Navatman, which began in 2025. The series brings the two organizations’ professional and student communities together to create new work at the intersection of Latin and Indian performing traditions.
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