Sinjini Chatterjee is a critical dance and performance studies scholar. She has been a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Dance Studies at The Ohio State University and holds a PhD in critical dance studies from the University of California, Riverside. Her research traces the interdependence between Odissi dance (a South Asian “classical” dance style from the state of Odisha in India) and other non-classical folk, tribal, and ritual performance practices of Odisha. Her work has been funded by the New York Public Library Fellowship and a research scholarship at the University of Music and Dance in Cologne, as well as by the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR), the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), the Coca Cola Foundation, and the Kellogg Foundation. Chatterjee has trained for fifteen years in Odissi dance under the guidance of Smt. Aloka Kanungo and has performed widely in India and the United Kingdom.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Chatterjee, Sinjini. “The ‘Indian’ Male Dancer: Queerness, Mimicry, and Erasure in the Construction of National and Transnational ‘Male’ Identity”. In “Early Twentieth-Century Dance Photography, Transnational and Transdisciplinary Approaches”, edited by Meindert Peters and Wesley Lim. Special issue, Dance Research Journal. Forthcoming 2027.
- Chatterjee, Sinjini. “Vilasini: Mahari Songs as Shared Expressions of Resistance and Interdependence”. In “India’s Courtesan, Hereditary, and Temple Performers: Expanding Discourse and Disrupting Histories”, edited by Sinjini Chatterjee and Shriya Patnaik. Special issue, Dance Chronicle 49, no. 3 (2026): 724–749. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ldnc20/49/3.
- Chatterjee, Sinjini, and Shriya Patnaik, eds. “India’s Courtesan, Hereditary, and Temple Performers: Expanding Discourse and Disrupting Histories”. Special issue, Dance Chronicle 49, no. 3 (2026). https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ldnc20/49/3.
- Chatterjee, Sinjini. “Reclaiming Naach: An Interview with Dancer-Choreographer Sharmila Biswas”. In The Oxford Handbook of Dance Praxis, edited by Anurima Banerji, Jasmine Johnson, and Royona Mitra. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming 2026.
- Chatterjee, Sinjini. “‘Katha Surpanakha’: Performance as an Advocate Against Nationalist Ideology”. Critical Stages/Scènes critiques 30, no. 1 (2024). https://www.critical-stages.org/30/katha-surpanakha-performance-as-an-advocate-against-nationalist-ideology/.
CURE RESEARCH PROJECT