Amit Patel is the Co-Founder & Artistic Director of Ishami Dance Company. Born and raised in the Bay Area, his artistic practice is shaped by training in Contemporary, Modern, Jazz, Garba (Gujarati folk dance), Bollywood, and an ongoing curiosity for a variety of South Asian classical dance forms.

As an artist and educator, Amit blends these movement languages with the diverse backgrounds of the artists he collaborates with to tell stories through an intersectional lens. By weaving together multiple dance vocabularies, he creates nuanced, culturally rooted works that expand the possibilities of storytelling through movement. Over the past decade, he has been developing an Indian Contemporary movement vocabulary while also creating unconventional classes such as Bollywood Heels, which explores the intersection of gender expression, culture, and dance.

Amit is passionate about using dance to build community and ensure the performing arts remain relevant and accessible to multigenerational audiences. Through his work, he has taught and performed internationally throughout the United Kingdom, Finland, Greece, Spain, France, Canada, and India.