Speaker: Royona Mitra, Author of "Unmaking Contact: Choreographing South Asian Touch"
Bio: Royona Mitra is Professor of Dance and Performance Cultures and Associate Pro Vice Chancellor of Equity and Inclusion at Brunel University of London, UK. She is the author of "Unmaking Contact: Choreographing South Asian Touch" (2025, OUP) and "Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism" (2015, Palgrave). Her first monograph was awarded the 2017 de la Torre Bueno First Book Award by the Dance Studies Association (DSA); her article "Unmaking Contact: Choreographic Touch at the Intersections of Race, Caste and Gender", was awarded DSA’s Gertrude Lippincott Award in 2022 for the Best English Language Journal Article; and her co-edited journal special issue titled "Outing Archives/Archives Outing" for Contemporary Theatre Review journal, alongside Profs Bryce Lease and Melissa Blanco Borelli, was awarded the Theatre and Performance Research Association's Edited Collection Prize in 2022. Her research examines systems of oppression in dance and performance cultures at the intersections of bodies, social power regimes, and choreography as resistance. She contributes to the fields of diaspora and performance, South Asian dance and performance cultures, critical dance studies and performance studies. Royona was Co-Investigator on the AHRC funded #DanceResearchMatters “South Asian Dance Equity” project (2023-2025) alongside Drs Prarthana Purkayastha (PI, RHUL) and Anusha Kedhar (Co-I, UC Riverside) and co-Chair of the Theatre and Performance Research Association alongside Dr Broderick Chow (RCSSD) (2022-2025).
FREE AND OPEN TO ALL
