Movement Practitioner & Creative Technologist
Varsha Iyengar
Varsha Iyengar is a movement practitioner and creative technologist based in San Francisco, USA and Bangalore, India. Her work integrates movement and technology to create multifaceted immersive performance environments rooted in inquiry and multidisciplinary collaboration, inviting equitable and critical examinations of technology within an arts practice.
Her current project, Decoding Digital Bodies, is a collaboration with Jessica Rajko that investigates how movement influences robotics research and development, with a particular focus on Boston Dynamics Spot robots. She is also directing and self-producing an international project based in India titled "Where Things Go", an exploration of the intricate and often unseen relationships we have with everyday objects and technological tools.
As a founding member of Driven Arts Collective, a California-based collective, Varsha has developed works such as CELSO, Khora, and Digital Milk, which explore themes of digital futures co-authored by humans and AI-driven emerging technologies. These pieces have been presented at CounterPulse, SAFEhouse Arts, and ODC in San Francisco, supported by grants such as the CLTC. Her academic work and research on data capture and analysis of vernacular movement have been presented at multiple conferences including MOCO and CHI. She also sits on the Board of Directors at CCAM, an artist-run platform based in Chicago.
Formally trained in Bharatanatyam and Contemporary dance, Varsha has been a dancer for Nritarutya, an Indian Contemporary dance company in Bangalore, India.