{"id":50327,"date":"2016-01-06T09:26:42","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T14:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cws.charlotte.edu\/backup-coaa\/people\/kaustavi-sarkar\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T14:09:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:09:25","slug":"kaustavi-sarkar","status":"publish","type":"people","link":"https:\/\/cws.charlotte.edu\/backup-coaa\/people\/kaustavi-sarkar\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaustavi Sarkar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kaustavi Sarkar <\/strong>is a professional Odissi soloist, performing and touring the eastern Indian traditional art form for the past two decades. In a recent review of a February 2025 performance in New Delhi, India, <a href=\"https:\/\/narthaki.com\/info\/dm\/dm62.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">critic Ashish Mohan Khokar wrote<\/a> that&nbsp;in her dance \u201cone saw clarity of poses and emotional range.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sarkar investigates virtuosity in dance-theater as fostered in traditional Indian aesthetics through her research on choreography and creative processes.&nbsp;She has commissioned works from female choreographers Ananya Chatterjea, Rohini Dandavate, Aruna Mohanty, and Maya Kulkarni to research and write about the creative process in South Asian aesthetics.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sarkar has published journal-length inquiries in <em>International Journal of Screendance<\/em>, <em>Choreographic Practices<\/em>, <em>Journal on Dance Educatio<\/em>n, <em>Performance Research<\/em> etc. Her book <em><a href=\"https:\/\/mcfarlandbooks.com\/product\/dance-technology-and-social-justice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dance Technology and Social Justice: Individual and Collective Emancipation Through Embodied Techniques<\/a><\/em> (McFarland, 2024) has been featured in Dance Studies Association\u2019s 2024-2025 Reading Seminars. She is working on another monograph, <em>Shaping S Curves: Choreographic Process in Odissi, <\/em>which is currently in contract with University of North Carolina Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sarkar is a leader in her field and serves as a Regional Director for the American College Dance Association (ACDA) mid-Atlantic region. Her research institute, &#8220;Dance and Community,&#8221; brings artists, educators, and scholars together towards systemic change and has been recognized by ACDA as an integrative medium for diasporic artists. She is the founding member as well as business manager for the journal <em><a href=\"https:\/\/journals.charlotte.edu\/index.php\/sadi\/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">South Asian Dance Intersections<\/a>. <\/em>She is also the founder of the <em>Odissi Odyssey <\/em>conference held annually at UNC Charlotte, which is the largest gathering of Odissi artists outside India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sarkar holds a Ph.D. in Dance Studies (focus on Digital Humanities) from The Ohio State University (2017).&nbsp; She also holds an M.S. in Economics with Minor in Finance, Texas A&amp;M University (2006).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Select Journal Publications:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">S Manjon, Sonia B. S, Akhona Ndzuta, Chlo\u00e9 Greene, Kaustavi C. Sarkar, Nicholas N. Flores, and Wen Guo. &#8220;A Transdisciplinary Approach to Mentoring Through Collaboration.&#8221;&nbsp;<em>Visual Inquiry<\/em>, vol. 5, no. 3, 2016, pp. 353-367.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sarkar, Kaustavi and Torsa Ghosal. \u201cBar Bar Sakhi: In Search of the Queer Temporalities of Sakhya.\u201d&nbsp;<em>Friendship as Social Justice Activism: Critical Solidarities in a Global Perspective,&nbsp;<\/em>edited by Debanuj Dasgupta, Niharika Benerjea, Rohit K. Dasgupta, and Jamie M. Grant, University of Chicago Press, 2016, pp. 56-89.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sarkar, Kaustavi. \u201cAnanlyzing Ananya Chatterjea\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Mohona\u201d Scripting Dance in Contemporary India,&nbsp;<\/em>edited by Varun Gulati and Mythili Anoop, Lexington Books, 2016, pp. 139-157.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8212;. \u201cA Difficult Whole: Reading Ananya Chatterjea\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Mohona, Estuaries of Desire<\/em>.\u201d&nbsp;<em>Research in Dance Education,&nbsp;<\/em>vol. 16, no. 3, 2015, pp. 10-28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8212;. \u201cQueer Temporal Twisting of Acceptable Indigeneity: Concurrence of&nbsp;<em>Odissi, Mahari, and Gotipua&nbsp;<\/em>Performance.\u201d&nbsp;<em>Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship<\/em>, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8212; and Paul Boyce. \u201c<em>Mahari&nbsp;<\/em>Then and Now: Queering Performativity in Odissi,\u201d edited by&nbsp;<em>Contemporary Women\u2019s Writing in India,&nbsp;<\/em>Lexington Books, 2014, pp. 83-79.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8212;. \u201cThe Frigid Description of the Dancing Body.\u201d&nbsp;<em>Performance Research<\/em>, vol. 18, no. 6, 2013, pp. 38-45.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kaustavi Sarkar is a professional Odissi soloist, performing and touring the eastern Indian traditional art form for the past two decades. In a recent review of a February 2025 performance in New Delhi, India, critic Ashish Mohan Khokar wrote that&nbsp;in her dance \u201cone saw clarity of poses and emotional range.&#8221; Sarkar investigates virtuosity in dance-theater [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":1003,"parent":0,"menu_order":50,"template":"","people_types":[31,147,29],"class_list":["post-50327","people","type-people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","people_types-administration","people_types-dance","people_types-faculty"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Kaustavi Sarkar - College of Arts + Architecture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kaustavi Sarkar - College of Arts + Architecture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kaustavi Sarkar is a professional Odissi soloist, performing and touring the eastern Indian traditional art form for the past two decades. 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