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About Nitya

I am a dance scholar, practitioner and educator interested in intercultural performance and the symbiosis between Bharatanatyam and modern dance forms. My creative process as well as scholarship is deeply influenced by feminist philosophy, queer studies, theories of embodiment and practice-as-research as a method of inquiry.

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I am currently a graduate student in the MFA Dance program at the University at Buffalo. I received my Master's in Performing Arts in Bharatanatyam from Hyderabad Central University (2011-2013) and performing arts diploma from Kalakshetra Foundation (2007-2011). 

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My current research examines the rituals of gendering in India, especially the rituals connected with marriage and widowhood. I look at these various tropes of gendering through a queer lens to move past labels of oppression, misogyny and normative heterosexuality to find spaces of queer resistance, queer becoming, and the creation of community. 

I am interested in a critical analysis of colonial discourses that have shaped ideas of agency and opportunity in terms of "third world" women, and the potential of performance to queer dominant modes of thinking and being. I look at performance as a counter discourse to dominant ideologies that provides spaces for resistance and new knowledge production.

Brief Bio

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