Chitra Sundaram
South Asian Category Final Judge
Chitra Sundaram is a dance/theatre choreographer, performer, mentor, trainer and educator.
Chitra Sundaram trained traditionally in India with illustrious masters of Bharatanatyam: Guru Venugopal Pillai, Guru Kalyanasundaram Pillai, the late Guru Kittappa Pillai, the late Guru Nana Kasar, and the late Guru Shrimati Kalanidhi Narayanan. Chitra’s works and teaching reflect her solid foundational form-based technique as well as her further explorations in other Indian and non-Indian dance/theatre forms. Chitra has collaborated and co-created works with others including Mavin Khoo, “CVC” Chandrasekhar (India) and Hari Krishnan (Canada).
Chitra has toured extensively in the UK and internationally over a long performing career, featuring in landmark events as the ‘East-West Dance Encounter’ in Bombay and ‘The Festival of India – UK’ in the eighties as well as appearing in the new millennium in the prestigious Chennai Season and Alchemy.
Chitra’s creations range from full-evening classical solo works as ‘Moham – A Magnificent Obsession’ to site-specific mixed-genres ensemble as ‘Awaaz/Voice’ for Trafalgar Square, from the social critique of ‘Sthreedom – The Good Wife’ to a contemporary take on a grotesque myth as in ‘Ahmas – The Immortal Sin a.k.a Skull’, which was commissioned by the Royal Opera House’s ROH2 programme. Chitra’s ‘Pashyamey – Behold Me!’, which premiered at the South Bank Centre’s Alchemy Festival, was shortlisted for British Dance Edition (BDE). In the early eighties, with Corinne Bougaard (of Union Dance Company), Chitra co-created and toured ‘Visions of Rhythm’ – one of the earliest “fusion” works in the UK, incorporating Bharatanatyam, western Contemporary Dance, and Jazz.
Chitra’s research and teaching interests include the problems and potential of classical forms in cross-cultural and intergenerational transmission of narratives.
Chitra was the editor for a number of years of the UK-based South Asian dance magazine, Pulse. She is a trustee of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (the ISTD) and a member of its Classical Indian Dance Faculty Committee. Chitra is an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Drama and Performance at Goldsmiths College, University of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA).
