My research examines the intersections of bodies, power regimes, and choreography as resistance against social harm. I contribute to the fields of diaspora and dance studies, South Asian dance studies, and performance studies.

My current book project titled Unmaking Contact: Choreographing South Asian Touch interrogates the politics of choreographing touch at the intersections of race, gender, caste, faith, sexuality, new interculturalisms and decoloniaity, and reframes contact in choreography beyond tactility through foregrounding transnational South Asian choreographic practices.  It is under contract with Oxford University Press and due for publication in 2024.

I am currently working alongside Dr. Prarthana Purkayastha (Royal Holloway University, UK) and Dr. Anusha Kedhar (University of California, Riverside, USA) on a project titled “South Asian Dance Equity (SADE): The Arts British South Asian Dance Ignores,” which is being funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council for its Dance Research Metters Network Scheme .

I am also working on a double volume co-edited anthology project alongside Drs Anurima Banerji (UCLA, USA) and Jasmine Johnson (UPenn, USA) titled The Oxford Handbooks of Dance Praxis, contracted with Oxford University Press.

In 2019 I completed a British Academy Small Grant funded project titled ‘Contemporary Dance and Whiteness‘ alongside Drs Simon Ellis (Coventry) and Arabella Stanger (Sussex). The project’s aim was to examine race and racism in British contemporary dance and to critique whiteness as part of a commitment to the field’s anti-racist futures. The project examined whiteness as a structure of racism that exists in the relationships between personal prejudice, cultural norms, and the lived conditions of inequality and racial violence. The project team wanted to walk a fine line in understanding and critiquing the default presence of whiteness in the field of contemporary dance while centering practices of liberation and solidarity through which whiteness is to be dismantled.

Publications:

BOOKS:

Mitra, R (forthcoming, 2024) Unmaking Contact: Choreographing South Asian Touch. (contracted with OUP)

Mitra, R (2015) Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

EDITED SPECIAL ISSUES:

Blanco Borrelli, Melissa, Bryce Lease & Royona Mitra (Eds) ‘Outing Archives, Archives Outing’. Special Issue for Contemporary Theatre Review.(2021) 31:1-2. 91-112.

Banerji, Anurima & Royona Mitra (Eds) ‘Decolonising Dance Discourses’. Special Issue for Conversations (January 2021).

EDITED VOLUMES/ANTHOLOGIES:

Banerji, Anurima, Jasmine Johnson & Royona Mitra (Eds) (forthcoming) The Oxford Handbook of Dance Praxis: Volume 1. Contracted with OUP.

Banerji, Anurima, Jasmine Johnson & Royona Mitra (Eds) (forthcoming) The Oxford Handbook of Dance Praxis: Volume 2. Contracted with OUP.

JOURNAL ARTICLES:

Mitra, R, B, Lease & M Blanco Borelli (2021) ‘Introduction: Outing Archives, Archives Outing’. Contemporary Theatre Review. Special Issue ‘Outing Archives, Archives Outing’. 31:1-2. 4-13.

Mitra, R (2022) ‘Unmaking Contact: Choreographic Touch at the Intersections of Race, Caste, and Gender’. Dance Research Journal. 53.3. 6-24. December 2021 Issue.

Mitra, R (2021) ‘Dancing the Archive Brown, Dancing the Archive Other in Akram Khan’s XENOS (2018)’. Contemporary Theatre Review. Special Issue ‘Outing Archives, Archives Outing’. 31:1-2. 91-112.

Mitra, R (2018) ‘Talking Politics of Contact Improvisation with Steve Paxton‘. Dance Research Journal, 50.3. 6 – 18.

Mitra, R and A, Banerji, A, Kedhar, J, O’Shea and S, Pillai (2017) ‘Postcolonial Pedagogies: Recasting the Guru–Shishya Parampara‘ in Theatre Topics’ ‘Notes from the Field’. 27.3. 221-230.

Mitra, R (2016) ‘Decolonising Immersion: Translation, Spectatorship, Rasa Theory and Contemporary British Dance‘ in Amelia Jones (Ed) ‘Trans/Performance.’ Performance Research Journal. 21.5. 89-100.

Mitra, R (2014) ‘The Parting Pelvis: Temporality, Sexuality and Indian womanhood in Chandralekha’s Sharira’ in Sherril Dodds (Ed) ‘‘Body Parts: Heads, Hips, Fingers, Feet, Chest, Belly, Butt.’ Dance Research Journal. 46.2. 5-19.

Mitra, R (2009) ‘Akram Khan Re-writes ‘Radha’: The ‘Hypervisible’ Cultural Identity in Kylie Minogue’s ‘Showgirl’’ in Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory. 19.1. 23-34.

Mitra, R (2006) ‘Living a Body Myth, Performing a Body Reality’ in Nandi Bhatia (Ed) Feminist Review. 84. 67-83.

BOOK CHAPTER:

Mitra, R. (2020). ‘Costuming Brownnesses in British South Asian Dance’. In J. Ross, S. Manning, & R. Schneider (Eds.), The Futures of Dance Studies. University of Wisconsin Press. (Forthcoming Winter 2019)

Mitra, R. (2017) ‘Akram Khan on the Politics of Choreographing Touch’, in Butterworth, J. and Wieldschut, L. (eds.) Contemporary Choreography: A Critical Reader. London: Routledge.

Mitra, R.  (2017)   ‘Beyond Fixity: Akram Khan on the Politics of Dancing Heritages’, in Morris, G.  and Nicholas, L. (eds.) Rethinking Dance History.  London: Routledge.

Mitra, R (2016) ‘Authorship, Physical Theatre and Justitia’ in Paul Johnson & Sylwia Dobkowska (Eds) Justitia: Multidisciplinary Readings of the work of Jasmin Vardimon Company. Bristol: Intellect Books. 143-154.

Mitra, R (2010) ‘Performing cultural heritage in ‘Weaving Paths’ by Sonia Sabri Dance Company’ in Anthony Jackson and Jennifer Kidd (Eds) Performing Heritage: Research, Practice and Innovation in Museum Theatre and Live Interpretation. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 144-157.

Mitra, R (2010) ‘Living a Body Myth, Performing a Body Reality’ in Amelia Jones (Ed) The Feminism and Visual Cultural Reader (2nd Edition). London: Routledge. 560-570.

Mitra, R (2010) ‘Dancing Embodiment, Theorising Space: Exploring the ‘Third Space’ in Akram Khan’s zero degrees’ in Andre Lepecki & Jenn Joy (Eds) Planes of Composition: Dance, Theory and the Global London: Seagull Books Ltd. 40-63.

Mitra, R (2009) ‘Embodiment of Memory and the Diasporic Agent in Akram Khan’s Bahok’ in Colin Counsel & Roberta Mock (Eds) Performance, Embodiment and Cultural Memory Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 41-58.

Mitra, R (2005) ‘Cerebrality: Re-writing Corporeality of a female Indian dancer’ in Johannes Birringer and Josephine Fenger (Eds) Tanz im Kopf (Dance & Cognition). 15. 167-183.

FILMS:

Ellis, S, R, Mitra & A Stanger (2020) ‘Racism and Contemporary Dance’ on on Dance and Whiteness Project website.

BOOK REVIEW:

Mitra, R (2015) ‘Desi Divas: Political Activism in South Asian American Cultural Performance, Book Review’ in Contemporary Theatre Review 25.4. 608-609. 

Mitra, R (2014) ‘The Dance that Make You Vanish, by Rachmi Diyah Larasati: Book Review’ in South Asia: A Journal of South Asian Studies 37.1. 185-187.

MAGAZINE ARTICLES / BLOGPOSTS:

Mitra, R (2020) ‘Reflections on a Burning World’ on Dance and Whiteness Project website.

Mitra, R & A, Stanger (2020) ‘AntiRacism in the UK Contemporary Dance Sector in Times of Covid-19’ on Dance and Whiteness Project website.

Mitra. R (2019) ‘I’ve danced my whole life, but none of that is useful at all’: Netflix’s We Speak Dance (2018), Vulnerability and Collaborative Critiques in “The Popular as the Political’ Special Issue of Conversations Across the Field. 

Mitra, R (2018) ‘On Dancing New Interculturalism‘ in Palgrave Theatre’s International Dance Day’s Campaign.

Mitra, R (2017) ‘A Test that Both Fixes and  Mobilises’ in Chow, B with  J, Abrams, M, Blanco Borelli, B, Lease, R, Mitra, J, Parker-Starbuck, G, Peterson (2017) ‘Civic Violence: Grappling with Life in the UK‘. Contemporary Theatre Review ‘Interventions’. 27.4.

Mitra, R et al (2016) ‘Writing from Silence‘ in LondonDance.Com.

Mitra, R (2015) ‘Akram Khan: Dance as Resistance‘ in Seminar Magazine’s special issue on ‘Why Dance?’.

CONFERENCE & INVITED RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS:

Co-Speaker with Drs Anusha Kedhar (UCR, USA) and Anurima Banerji (UCLA, USA) on “It’s Gender, Not Caste”: A Digital Discourse Analysis of Indian “Classical” Dance and the Negation of Intersectionality, Indian Performing Arts Forum. Dublin. (June 2024)

Co-Speaker with Drs Anusha Kedhar (UCR, USA) and Anurima Banerji (UCLA, USA) on “It’s Gender, Not Caste”: A Digital Ethnography of Indian “Classical” Dance and the Negation of Intersectionality, Dance and Virtual Ecologies Conference. Cologne. (October 2023)

Invited Speaker on “So How Does Gender Matter in South Asian Dance?”, SAMPAD. (November 2022)

Co-Chair and Curator of ‘Anti-Colonial Dance Studies’ Gathering at Dance Studies Association 2022, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. (October 2022)

Speaker with Jaivant Patel at Performance, Communities, Identities Working Group of Theatre and Performance Research Association 2022, Essex University (September 2022)

Invited Speaker with Broderick Chow, Mojisola Adbayo, Olivia Michiko Gagnon, Tia-Monique Uzor & mélissandre varin, TaPRA2021 Annual Conference. (September 2021)

Invited Speaker with Arabella Stanger for Centre for Dynamics of Ethnicity, University of Manchester (June 2021)

Joint Keynote with Mojisola Adebayo and Broderick Chow, Irish Society of Theatre Research, (May 2021)

Invited Speaker with Broderick Chow for Critical Pedagogies Public Lecture, Westminster University (May 2021)

Invited Speaker in Conversation with Rajni Shah, University of Sussex (November 2020)

Keynote at Intersections Conference 2020, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (January 2020)

Speaker at American Studies Association Conference 2019, Honolulu (November 2019)

Speaker at Bodies and Performance Working Group of Theatre and Performance Research Association 2019, Exeter University (September 2019)

Co-Chair and Curator of ‘Decolonising Dance Discourses’ Dual Gatherings at Dance Studies Association 2019, Northwestern University (August 2019)

Invited Respondent to Prof Kehinde Andrews’ Keynote on Beyond Diversity: What Next at SCUDD Annual Conference, Sheffield Hallam University (June 2019)

Invited Curator and Chair of London Theatre Seminars Sponsored Roundtable (May 2019)

Keynote at SPA Annual Conference 2019, University of Malta (March 2019)

Speaker at Public Lecture Series, University of Wolverhampton (March 2019)

Speaker at Postgraduate Research Training Series, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama  (February 2019)

Speaker at National University of Ireland Galway, Research Seminar Series (January 2019)

Speaker at Society of Dance Research’s Choreographic Forum on XENOS, Senate House London (June 2018)

Curator of Akram Khan Company Panel on XENOS, Sadler’s Wells (June 2018)

Speaker at TECHNE, Doctoral Training Partnership Event, Royal Holloway University of London (May 2018)

Keynote at Performing Research Symposium, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (January 2018)

Keynote at Girls School Association Cluster, Pipers Corner School, Buckinghamshire (October 2017)

Keynote at University of Surrey’s Movement Symposium (January 2017)

Kingston University (2016)

Navadisha, South Asian Dance Conference, Birmingham (2016).

Brunel Theatre Research Seminars (2016)

University of Surrey (November 2015)

Brown University, USA (October 2015)

London Theatre Seminars (2014)

Brunel Theatre Research Seminars (2014)

Gdansk Dance Conference at Gdansk Dance Festival (2012)

University of Warwick, Drama Department Annual Research Seminar Series (2008)