Vidya Natarajan
Vidya studied bharatanatyam (Indian classical dance) for 25 years in India with Kittappa Pillai, one of the greatest masters of this form. She also studied Indian classical music with T. Brinda and expressive dancing with Shyamala Mohan. Vidya performed and taught dance for many years in India and south-east Asia.
A London resident since 2002, she has been guest artist-in-residence with the Toronto company inDance, and has danced key roles in Poornima, The King’s Salon, Fallen Rain, and Gold. Recent projects include performances at Eldon House, FLUX dance festival, and currently, "Road to Tanjore," a collaboration about Indo-Celtic music and dance in colonial South India. Her doctoral thesis was on the history of bharatanatyam.
As part of a non-profit dance initiative in Chennai, she helped document the techniques of dancers from hereditary but marginalized dancing families. Chelimi (a theatre group of which she was a founder-member) was involved in activism promoting gender equality.
Vidya wrote and performed Friend of Mine for the 2014 London Fringe Festival. Selected publishing credits: No Onions Nor Garlic, Penguin India; Ambedkar: the Fight for Justice, Tate; A Gardener in the Wasteland, Navayana. She has just completed a novel called The Undoing Dance.
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