Nithya Nagarajan

Performance Maker and Curator

Nithya (b. Kuwait) is a contemporary performance maker and curator based in Naarm whose practice adopts movement as a system of inquiry into the sacred, the sensual and the decolonial. Her performance work affects sensory perceptions of the witness through a collaborative process of meaning making, underpinned by a strong feminist sensibility.

With a foundational training in Bharatanatyam, Nithya is interested in an expanded understanding of movement as: grammar, construct, philosophy, political conduit and chaos. She is currently working on a semi-autobiographical one-woman dance theatre work with theatre maker Liv Satchell that explores coming of age in a culture of abuse.

In her curatorial practice, Nithya regularly collaborates with artist-activists from the subcontinent to present body based interventions in both traditional and site-specific contexts.

She is widely published and has worked in a range of institutions in the UK, India and Australia in programming, creative producing, international engagement and equity and justice work. She is a founding member of the South Asian collective H-ME W-RK, alongside Priya Pavri, Zainab Syed and S.Shakthidharan and holds an award-winning PhD on intersectional feminism and Indian contemporary dance.