Pallabi Chakravorty

🪔 About

Pallabi Chakravorty is a distinguished Indian classical dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and academic, renowned for her contributions to Kathak dance and dance studies. She commenced her dance journey at an early age, studying classical Indian dance, including Bharatanatyam, and various folk forms at the Children's Little Theatre in Kolkata, India, where she also toured as a student. For two decades, she immersed herself in Kathak, training under Guru Bandana Sen, a prominent disciple of the legendary Kathak maestro Shambhu Maharaj. Chakravorty is the founder and artistic director of Courtyard Dancers, a non-profit community-centered arts organization established in Philadelphia in 2000, with a branch in Kolkata. The company focuses on developing Kathak as a form of cultural literacy and empowerment, presenting original works in the U.S., Europe, and India. Her choreographies often explore postcolonial modernist themes, drawing inspiration from historical and contemporary events in India. Academically, Pallabi Chakravorty is a full-time faculty member and Director of the Dance Program in the Department of Music and Dance at Swarthmore College, where she teaches Kathak technique and dance anthropology. She holds a Ph.D. in Visual Anthropology from Temple University. As an active researcher and scholar, she has authored and co-edited several influential books, including "Bells of Change: Kathak Dance, Women and Modernity in India" (2008), "Performing Ecstasy" (2009), "Dance Matters" (2009), and "This is How We Dance Now" (2017), and "Dance Matters Too" (2018). Her scholarly work critically examines the transformation of Indian performing arts, challenging Western epistemological perspectives and exploring gender, power, and identity within dance. Awards & Honours: Rocky's dance award (2006).