Unsettling Classical Bodies: Padmini Chettur in Conversation with Brooke Holmes and Anurima Banerji

Padmini Chettur, pioneering choreographer and dancer based in Chennai, India, visited New York to talk about her work under the auspices of the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University. Emerging out of the Indian form Bharatanatyam and crossing multiple disciplines, Chettur’s experimental movement practice undoes the fixity of the classical through rigorous inquiry into the form and politics of dance and the body. On April 27th 2023, Chettur discussed her work with current CBA Fellows, dance scholar Anurima Banerji (UCLA) and classicist and theorist Brooke Holmes (Princeton University) at the Center for Ballet and the Arts. They considered questions such as, what is the relationship between tradition and the contemporary? What archives does a body hold? And how do artists shape new futures with the creative legacies they carry?

Photo of Padmini Chettur by SAF © Padmini Chettur