October 13, 2015

Lyman Hall, Room 211

Dancing New Interculturalism: Akram Khan and the Politics of Othering

Royona Mitra’s research talk examined the British-Asian dancer/choreographer Akram Khan’s oeuvre through the theoretical lens of “new interculturalism.” It presented  key conceptual frameworks from Royona Mitra’s recently published monograph entitled Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism (Palgrave; 2015), with special emphasis on Khan’s ‘politics of othering’ as a fundamental characteristic of his aesthetic, as exemplified in Gnosis (2010), Zero Degrees (2005) and Dust (2013). This lecture was sponsored by TAPS and the Mellon Dance Studies Colloquium.
Royona Mitra is a Lecturer in Theatre in the Department of Arts and Humanities at Brunel University London where she teaches physical theatre, intercultural performance and critical theory. Her interdisciplinary research between dance and theatre studies addresses intersectionalities between bodies, cultures and identities. She is the author of Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism (Palgrave, 2015), the first book-length project to examine the works of this seminal British-Asian artist, and has also published in Dance Research Journal, Feminist Review and Women & Performance and contributed to edited anthologies on dance, identity and culture. Royona is currently developing a research project entitled ‘Queering Dance / Theatre: Resistive Choreographies in Physical Theatre’.