Sumedha BhattacharyyaSumedha B.
ICCR-empanelled Kathak dancer

Sumedha Bhattacharyya

Bodies in relation. Movement as memory. Choreography across stage, spaces and screen.Across stage, spaces and screen.

Dance artist · Researcher · Filmmaker · Choreographer · Educator

An interdisciplinary dance artist, choreographer, researcher, dance filmmaker and educator, working in the in-between: performance and technology, body and camera, tradition and rebellion, making and studying.

Doctoral
PhD in progress, Ethnomusicology — University of Music and Performing Arts Graz
Master's
Choreomundus MA, Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage — Erasmus Mundus scholarship; Norway, France, Hungary, UK
Funding
AHRC grant awardee and project lead (India), Goldsmiths Mocap Streamer residency, University of London — Water Nodes
Faculty
University of Utah · Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities · Ashoka University · Barnard College, Columbia University

Questions the work keeps asking

Research →
01 How does the camera become an extension of the dancer — and who sees whom? Jam Upload Download Upload Jam · 2020 02 How does water carry memory, and how do maternal histories move through the body? Water Nodes · 2022 03 How does longing between a grieving granddaughter and her grandmother's ghost take shape in Kathak vocabulary? Biroho · 2022 04 How is the loss of intergenerational memory tied to today's ecological crisis? Mau: The Spirit Dreams of Cheraw · 2023
I Dance Choreography Movement, space, and storytelling. II Performance Embodied practice across stage and screen. III Workshops Movement, exploration, and creative exchange.

Selected work

Screen · Stage · Installation · Experiment

Mau: a dancer in red bends backwards between bamboo poles in a forest

Mau: The Spirit Dreams of Cheraw

2023
Director of photography · dir. Shilpika Bordoloi
Biroho: a hand tracing Bengali letters in the sand beside a smear of red powder and a small bottle

Biroho

2022
Co-director and producer · with Pratik Iyer
Water Nodes: a motion-capture figure in a white lattice skin, lit blue, beneath swirling trails of white points

Water Nodes

2022
Co-choreographer · with Aabshaar Wakhloo
Jam Upload Download Upload Jam: a black-and-white extreme close-up of the film's protagonist, wide eyes and a nose stud, hair falling across one side

Jam Upload Download Upload Jam

2020
Choreography and execution · Liminalities 17
Saraab: Mirage: a woman with dark curly hair, seen from behind, looks across a winter field of bare trees

Saraab: Mirage

2018
Cinematographer · storyline Hediye Azma
Monalisa: a young woman in a pink and white kurta and red scarf crouches on a fallen bamboo pole in a bamboo grove

Monalisa

2026
Director and writer · documentary · prod. Christoph Winkler, Lubna Marium
All work →

Film festival official selections and awards. Upcoming in 2026: Beyond Borders Feminist Film Festival · San Francisco Dance Film Festival.

Performance

Kathak · Stage

ICCR Kathak: a Kathak dancer spins, her white skirt flaring, in black and white

ICCR Kathak

Kathak solo · Jhulna Aamad
Kathak and Maand: a Kathak dancer in a pink and green costume, one arm raised, with seated musicians behind her

Kathak & Maand

2015
Performer · choreography Guru Dr. Shashi Sankhla · Thirak Dance Festival
Coalesce: a dancer in red with arms raised on a dark stage before a red backdrop

Coalesce: Re-imagining Kadambari

2018
Kathak, Limón technique and performance poetry · Footprint Dance Festival

Teaching

I teach dance as more than technique: as a way to listen, reflect, remember, question, and understand ourselves and the worlds we move through.

Founder of Duet with Camera (2020 onward), a pedagogy spanning performance, practice and documentation.

Sangeet Natak Akademi · 2022
Ashoka University · 2024
University of Utah · 2025

Invitations · Collaboration · Appointments