Padmini Chettur (born 1970) is an Indian

contemporary dancer Contemporary dance is a genre of dance performance that developed during the mid-twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominant genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly strong popularity i ...

, trained by dancer-choreographer Chandralekha. She runs her own dance company based in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

, India, "Padmini Chettur Dance Company".

Early life and education

Padmini Chettur was born in 1970 and began her training in the Indian classical dance-styles

Bharata Natyam ''Bharatanatyam'' is a Indian classical dance form that came from Tamil Nadu, India. It is a classical dance form recognized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, and expresses South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas of Hinduism and Jainism. ...

as a child. She graduated from

Birla Institute of Technology and Science The Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani) is a private deemed university in Pilani, Rajasthan, India. It focuses primarily on higher education and research in engineering and sciences. BITS Pilani was one of the first s ...

Pilani Pilani is a town located in the Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan, India. The town is well known as the location of BITS Pilani. Demographics , Pilani has a population of 29,741 of which 51% are males and 49% females. The average literacy rate is ...

(BITS Pilani) in 1991.

Career

Padmini presented her first contemporary experiment in 1989. In 1991 she joined the dance company run by Chandralekha and worked with it till 2001, performing in the productions ‘Lilavati,’ ‘Prana,’ ‘Angika,’ ‘Sri,’ ‘Bhinna Pravaha,’ ‘Yantra,’ ‘Mahakaal’ and ‘Sharira.’ Meanwhile, she presented her first solo work ‘Wings and Masks’ (1999). This was followed by ‘Brown', the duet 'Unsung’, ‘Fragility’ (2001) – a group production, and ‘Solo’ (2003) in three sections, and then came another group production ‘Paperdoll’. Her production, ‘Pushed’ premiered at Seoul Performing Arts Festival (SPAF) 2006, and travelled to Brussels, Holland, Salzburg, Paris and Lisbon. ‘Beautiful Thing 1’ and ‘Beautiful Thing 2’ were created as a group and a solo work respectively – exploring the politics of beauty of the body and the space. These were performed extensively in India and abroad. ‘Wall Dancing’ came next as a group production with further explorations in that line – pushing the boundaries of the notion of dependency of bodies with one another as well that with the space. This was also her first non-proscenium work that travelled within India and to Vienna and Singapore. While working with 'Wall Dancing', she created ‘Kolam’ in association with French choreographe
David Rolland
as part of his production. It is a dance piece created on a massive carpet with a

Kolam Kolam (, , ), also known as Muggu (), Tarai Alangaram () and Rangoli (), is a form of traditional decorative art that is drawn by using rice flour as per age-old conventions. It is also drawn using white stone powder, chalk or chalk powder, oft ...

designed on it. Padmini is currently working on a group piece exploring the notion of distance and longing by working with a

Varnam Varṇam is a type of composition in the Carnatic music system that encapsulates the key features of a raga, and considered as a foundational element in the learning path. Varnams capture the essence of the ragam in terms of typical swara patt ...

in a contemporary way – relevant to current socio-cultural scenario. She has been artist in residence in England, the Netherlands, Germany and elsewhere. She is also one of the co-founders (along with dancer-choreographer Preethi Athreya, musician-composer Maarten Visser and theater-director-actor Pravin Kannanur) of an artists' collective based in Chennai, India – known a
Basement 21

Works

* ''Wings and Masks'' (Production / Performance, 1999) *''Fragility'' (Production / Performance, 2001) *''Solo'' (Production / Performance, 2003) *''Paperdoll'' (Production / Performance, 2005) * ''Pushed'' (Production / Performance, 2006)Pushed
/ref> * ''Beautiful Thing 1'' (Production / Performance, 2009) * ''Beautiful Thing 2'' (Production / Performance, 2011) * ''Wall Dancing'' (Production / Performance, 2012) * ''Kolam'' (In association with David Rolland) (Production / Performance, 2014) * ''Varnam'' (Production / Performance, 2016)

References

External links

Profile of Padmini Chettur in Basement 21
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chettur, Padmini Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani alumni Indian female classical dancers Living people 1970 births Bharatanatyam exponents Indian contemporary dancers Indian women choreographers Indian choreographers Contemporary dance choreographers Dancers from Tamil Nadu Women artists from Tamil Nadu Artists from Chennai 20th-century Indian dancers 21st-century Indian dancers 20th-century Indian women artists 21st-century Indian women artists