Trained extensively to perform both on the street and the stage, Shirin has over two decades of experience performing on issues like “religiously” motivated violence, caste and untouchability, violence against women, racism, globalization, HIV-AIDS and childcare. She has traveled to remote areas of India and Nepal with Nishant Natya Manch, a group that pioneered the street theater movement in India and has been in existence for about four decades. In the process, she has also become a trainer, conducting theater workshops and trainings for civil society organizations, schools and universities.

She has also worked through her theater in other countries, including the United States. She heads Peace Vigil which is a volunteer-based street theater group working in DC and New York among the South Asian immigrant population.

Shirin believes in practicing cultural media to question the violence and injustices in our society and develop theater techniques that involve the audience as active participants rather than just spectators. Her theater is distinguished by the high degree of audience involvement and animated post-performance discussions.

Also a trained journalist, Shirin has used her writings to address the aforementioned issues. She has authored articles in journals and written a small book entitled “Change is our Message; Street is our stage”. She also occasionally teaches journalism at the Delhi University. She freelances for news services like the Inter Press Service and Indian journals such as Mainstream, Manushi and Indian Currents. She has a Master’s degree in Women’s Studies from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia and a Bachelor’s with Honors in Journalism from Lady Sri Ram College, New Delhi, India. She has worked with alternative media both in India and the U.S. in addition to working with organizations such as Amnesty International.

Esha Bandyopadhaya

Esha's sterling performances in India paved the way for her debut in the international music circuit in June 1999. She was invited by the University of Toronto, Canada to perform on the occasion of Bangla Mela, Her subsequent tour of Canada included sixteen concerts and inspired the growing popularity of North Indian classical vocal music in the Western world. Since then Esha has been performing and doing workshops and lecture-demonstrations during part of every year in the USA, Canada and Western Europe for leading Indian Organizations as well as renowned Universities.

Esha remarks,”My pursuits in art and music have always been the magic wand through my life. The experience of listening, learning and performing music has naturally had a soothing impact and brought a special insight into my philosophy of life. The sound waves moving within the body and emanating from the mouth, is the expression of the entire being… it is Sadhana or meditation itself.”

Victoria Rue, M.Div., Ph.D
Victoria is a feminist theologian, and writer/director/teacher of theatre. She teaches at San Jose State University in Comparative Religions and Women's Studies. Her book, Acting Religious: Theatre as Pedagogy in Religious Studies will be published in the fall of 2005 by Pilgrim Press. Dr. Rue's ministries include: teaching, writing and directing theatre, volunteering as a hospice chaplain, and facilitating a house church. Her new book expands on that theme and is grounded in her deep interfaith committment to honoring all religious traditions.

Ana van Figueiredo
Ana van Figueiredo is a Teacher of Dance, Myth, Image and is a choreographer. She co-ordinates the Roundtable and the mythological journeys of the Josef Campbell Foundation in Sao Paolo, Brazil. She has also studied closely with Paolo Friere and is a Diplomate of the Isadora Duncan Academy of Dance.

The following letter to new artist friends in the Pilgrimage Project is an informal introduction from Ana.

"Dear friends, Olá a todos!

Portuguese is my language, Brasil is my origin country. Planet Earth is my house. As Sato, my paponese master used to say, "God's house has no roof. Man is universal without frontiers." So my home is a house with no roof.

Let me introduce myself. Since I was a child travel to different places, different from my place, was my dream. And the images of art were and still are a window to my soul and to the world.

I graduate with a degree in sociology. During the next 7 years I worked with education with children at the streets an then with women's group.
At that time, with 25 years old, I started to dance. With 31 years old I left sociology and started to work with dance: creative dance, body awareness, improvisation. With 33 years old I started to develop my personnal studies in mythology, images of art and dance. I started with greek muthology, and then the time before greek culture - where women were honored, but also the jew & christhian mythology and finally the african-brazilian myths - "candomblé".
Today I work more than ever with women. They dance as a medium to get in touch with their story of life, their body's life, their cycle and the big cycle of life. We dance the soul, love and the feminine & masculine aspects of the world.
I work with small groups during one year with a special theme but I also work with big groups during specific days.

My future project is to create a choreography working with gestures and images the idea of the net. We are all connected by nets. The creating process with the group will be performed in an open place like a park, garden or a museum.
It is a pleasure and a honour to be in contact with all of you, and with each of you.
We are also a net having Linda linking us. We are the pearl and she is the lace.
I hope that soon we can meet and create something together, maybe with no words, maybe a ritual made by sounds and music, acts and gestures, steps and movements. Our language will be understood by the people from everywhere.

Um grande abraço a todos! Até & Axé"