Avanthi Meduri

🪔 About

Dr. Avanthi Meduri is a distinguished scholar, dancer, actress, playwright, curator, and arts administrator, renowned for her significant contributions to Indian classical dance, particularly Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, and the academic field of Postcolonial South Asian Dance Studies. Born in Chennai, India, she received her foundational training in Bharatanatyam from Adyar K Lakshman and in Kuchipudi from the esteemed Guru Padma Bhushan Dr. Vempati Chinna Sathyam. She also studied Carnatic music with S. Rajam and Sitarama Sharma of Kalakshetra. In the late 1980s, Meduri transitioned from an active professional dance career to pursue an academic path, earning her PhD in Performance Studies from the Tisch School of Arts, New York University, in 1996. Her doctoral thesis, "Nation, Woman, Representation: the Sutured History of the Devadasi and her Dance, 1856-1960," critically examined the transnational traditions of Bharatanatyam and is widely recognized for establishing the subfield of Postcolonial South Asian Dance Studies. Meduri has held prominent academic positions, including Reader in Dance and Performance Studies at Roehampton University, London, where she was the Convener of the first postgraduate program in South Asian Dance Studies in the UK and Europe, launched in 2005. This program attracted students globally and was recognized as an 'area of excellence'. She also co-founded the Asian Performing Arts Forum in London and, in 2020, established the Global Talking Dance Forum, associated with Roehampton University. Her career is marked by extensive curatorial and performance work. As a Ford Fellow, she founded the Centre for Contemporary Culture in New Delhi in 2000, where she curated the Rukmini Devi Arundale photo-archive. She adapted her doctoral research into a bilingual dance-theatre production, which toured 26 cities across India between 1996 and 2000 with the Koothu-pa-ttaria theatre company. Dr. Meduri has received numerous national and international awards and fellowships, including the TANA award (1995), the India Foundation for Arts national grant (1996), the Mohan Khokar award (2013), and the T. Balasaraswati memorial award (2015). She is also the author of a book on Rukmini Devi Arundale and has published extensively in academic journals. Awards & Honours: TANA (Telugu Association for North Americans) award for outstanding services to Indian performing arts (1995), India Foundation for Arts (IFA) national grant (1996), Mohan Khokar award for outstanding overall contribution to dance scholarship (2013), T. Balasaraswati memorial award for outstanding scholarship in Indian performing arts (2015).