Rajni choreographed and performed in this short film by Theron U. Schmidt which was originally screened as part of the live performance The Crossing at 7Stages Theatre in Atlanta GA, USA. The film depicts a body talking and listening to itself at a distance, the ways in which getting out of one’s skin also means getting into one’s skin.
Erupting unexpectedly into beautiful, entangled dance, or into exquisite, tense stillness, The Awkward Position took a fresh look at that age-old question, what are we doing here? Except that this was no abstract philosophical inquiry: by "here", Rajni meant right here, in the theatre, with an audience, performers, a technician, and a director...
Miss America was conceived in collaboration with artist Ruth Laxson and poet Jerry Cullum, and was performed at the Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta, GA during one of Ruth's exhibitions. Miss America explored representations of war, the human body, and the ways in which we communicate with each other. Rajni performed first with Ruth and then solo, responding to the artist’s work.
Upon a Blighted Star was a short duet conceived as a direct response to the events of September 11th and reactions to these events within the United States of America. It was originally performed at a benefit for New York service workers organized by the Georgia Coalition for Peace. The work was further developed within the Translations series, and was later performed at the Camden People’s Theatre in London.
Performers: Theron U. Schmidt and Rajni Shah.
The Most Unlikely People Confess to their Dream was a series of intimate solos incorporating performance art, installation, writing, dance and original music, in which each performer’s dream was mapped onto the body of another.
Spinning 101 was a collaboration between Rajni Shah and visual artist Martha Whittington commissioned for the 2001 Seen + Heard festival in Atlanta GA. Fake hair controlled by machinery interacted with the performer in a silent film, which was looped and played in the presence of the fake hair machines to create a self-referential loop. A fibre and performance installation.
A Winter show, As If Traveling Through Snow was an hour-long duet exploring separateness and the longing for union. The audience was seated in two sections, facing each other but in opposite corners of the gallery, separated by a row of clear plastic sheets. Each audience member had a walkman and listened to a unique soundtrack as the show began. Rajni and Jill began by performing solo on each side of the divided space. As the show evolved, the audience was brought back into the room through the instruction to remove the headphones. Later, the physical divides in the space were lost and the show ended with a pas de deux.
Rajni’s first full-length show, hold each as we fall was performed by Gemma Brockis, Meredith Evans, Triona Kennedy and Rajni Shah. Exploring the desire for recognition, the story was loosely based on the myth of Echo and Narcissus and featured two performers in dresses, one performer in pyjamas, one performer dressed as a bear, and two microphones with very long leads. The show was created over six months but designed to only ever be performed once: 11pm, Sunday 18th April 1999.