Pallabi Chakravorty teaches Kathak dance and academic courses related to the anthropology of performance in the Department of Music and Dance at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, USA.  Founder and artistic director of the ensemble Courtyard Dancers, she is an anthropologist, dancer, choreographer, and cultural worker.  Pallabi studied Kathak and other classical and folk dance styles in Calcutta under renowned gurus, primarily Bandana Sen.  Pallabi received her doctoral degree in Visual Anthropology from Temple University, Philadelphia.  Her inter-disciplinary research has been published in journals such as South Asia, Visual Anthropology, Dance Research Journal, Moving Worlds, Sruti, and Pulse, and in collections such as The Culture Studies Reader and Reorienting Orientalism.  She organized an international symposium titled Dance in South Asia: New Approaches, Politics, and Aesthetics, and edited the proceedings (published by Swarthmore).  Her book on Kathak dance titled Bells of Change: Kathak Dance, Women, and Modernity in India is forthcoming from Seagull.  Her co-edited monograph titled Performing Ecstasy: The Poetics and Politics of Religion in South Asia is currently being evaluated.  She is currently co-organizing an international conference (Dance Matters) with the department of Media, Communication and Culture at Jadavpur University.

Her dance works (ranging from traditional repertoire to contemporary choreographies) explore the interdependence between art, life and labor.  Her dance works have been presented in prominent venues such as Philadelphia Museum of Art, PS 122 in New York, National Geographic Society in Washington D.C, Painted Bride in Philadelphia, and others.   

Download Pallabi Chakravorty’s Resume