Parijat Desai

🪔 About

Parijat Desai is an India-born, U.S.-raised choreographer and dancer renowned for creating hybrid performances that blend contemporary dance with Indian classical and Gujarati folk dance forms, as well as experimental theater. She founded the Parijat Desai Dance Company in Los Angeles in 2000, later relocating to New York City in 2004. As the artistic director of Parijata Performance, she explores South Asian American identity and challenges notions of cultural purity through her work. Desai began her dance training at age five with Bharatanatyam in Houston, and later resumed her studies in high school with a renewed appreciation. She holds a BA in anthropology from Stanford University and an MFA in choreography from UCLA. Her choreographic approach is characterized by rigorous experimentation in form and concept, evolving dance traditions in dialogue with experimental performance. Her performances speak in blended languages to express her South Asian American identity and experience, and to challenge ideas of cultural purity and fear that underlie nationalism and xenophobia in the United States and India. She is concerned with the constant interplay between emotional landscapes, political realities, and the natural world, which she explores in works like "How Do I Become WE". Desai acknowledges her caste privilege and strives to support movements for Dalit/Bahujan liberation, working to dismantle caste apartheid. As an educator, she leads "Dance In The Round" workshops that share garba and raas, traditional circle dances from Gujarat, India, promoting community well-being and engagement across diverse groups. Desai has been an artist-in-residence at numerous prestigious institutions, including Movement Research, Colorado College, and Stanford University's Institute for Diversity in the Arts. Her work has been presented internationally at venues such as Danspace Project, La Mama ETC, J. Paul Getty Center, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai. She made her Off-Broadway debut as choreographer for Elyria at Atlantic Theater. Her accolades include the Lester Horton Dance Award and a Fulbright scholarship in 2013-2014. Awards & Honours: Lester Horton Dance Award, Fulbright (2013), NYFA BUILD, LMCC Creative Communities, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.