The first edition of the LURU Screendance Festival 2026 will be held from September 12 to 19 in Bengaluru. Presented by Vishwakiran Nambi Dance Company, in collaboration with Choreoscope Barcelona Dance Film Festival, the festival is conceived and curated by dancer-choreographer Vishwakiran Nambi. The aim, he says, is to explore “what happens when choreography begins to exist through cinema. When a body enters a film, it does not merely carry dance from the stage to the screen. The camera alters space, the edit reshapes time, and framing, sound, light and movement operate as parts of a single choreographic language.”

The festival opens at Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy with the screening of 12 short films (four to 15 minutes) by independent dance-filmmakers from the U.S., Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Czechia to name a few. “While most films are on contemporary dance, we do have one film on Indian classical dance,” says Vishwakiran, noting that “there is no particular theme this year as it is LURU’s debut.” The evening will also feature the inaugural LURU awards. This is a public event.

From the second day, the festival moves online with Present & Future of Screendance in India at 5 p.m. IST, featuring a conversation with artistes and practitioners on the current landscape and future of the form. On September 15, 7 p.m., Kalpana: Dance, Cinema & History will revisit Uday Shankar’s landmark film and its relationship to dance and cinema. On September 18, 7 p.m., the LURU artists’ conversation will bring together selected filmmakers and award-winning artistes to discuss their films and approaches to screendance. These are open to all through RSVP (write to luru@vndc.in or WhatsApp 8095374522).

The inaugural edition received 108 submissions from 30 countries, bringing together films and artistes across diverse contexts, shares Vishwakiran. The concluding day, he says, is reserved for college screenings, community/school screenings, and the ‘LURU × Choreoscope artists’ gathering — this is a part of the festival’s outreach and educational components, and is not open to the public. “Screendance has always occupied an interesting position between disciplines. It belongs to dance, but not entirely. It belongs to cinema, but not quite. LURU emerges from this tension, aiming to create a space in India where the form can be encountered on its own terms,” says Vishwakiran.