Kaustavi Sarkar
Dr. Kaustavi Sarkar, Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, is an Odissi (eastern Indian traditional art form) soloist, scholar, and educator. Disciple of Guru Sujata Mohapatra, Guru Ratikant Mohapatra, and Guru Poushali Mukherjee, Sarkar has received national awards and scholarships from the Ministry of Culture, India. She has represented India at the Commonwealth Day Celebrations in Sri Lanka 2007 and has received numerous national fellowships and awards by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, India. She has performed over the past two decades as a soloist and as ensemble member with Srjan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Dance Ensemble and with Uday Shankar India Culture Center.
A two-time NEA awardee and multiple state and regional grant recipient, Sarkar dedicates her creative and scholarly practice to feminist and queer research and pedagogy. Her choreography and scholarship has been featured in Nritya-Darpan, Erasing Borders, American College Dance Association Conference, Dance Studies Association, World Dance Alliance, and Odissi International.
She is the founder and manager of “South Asian Dance Intersections”, a journal dedicated to South Asian dance studies. Sarkar is dedicated to Dr. Maya Kulkarni's Shilpanatanam as a research project. She has performed to wide acclaim two pieces choreographed by Kulkarni, Woman with a Parrot and An Impossible Romance in New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Ohio.
Sarkar's performance draws from her practice-based research funded by regional and federal grants. She disseminates her research onstage as well as through her writing in peer-reviewed venues. Her book projects Dance Technology and Social Justice and Shaping S-Curves focus on social justice and aesthetic imperatives of South Asian dance practice respectively. She is an ardent community builder and conducts an annual conference on Odissi dance at Charlotte since 2019 drawing dancers, scholars, educators, and performers from across the globe. Her project Dance and Community (dNc) involves professional soloists and important choreographers, namely Ananya Chatterjea, Rohini Dandavate, and Aruna Mohanty, where she organizes solo and ensemble projects towards her research-based inquiry into South Asian choreography.
