Chitra Vairavan

2024 Choreography FELLOW

Photo by Canaan Mattson

Chitra Vairavan is a contemporary Indian dancer, choreographer and educator of South
Indian-American descent, with roots in Kandanur and Rayavaram. Vairavan is immersed in both Thamizh/Tamil culture and progressive brown politics in the U.S. Her embodied practice and experimental process is rooted in deep listening, spatial observation, freedoms, poetry, vulnerability and ancestral memory.

She chooses to gesture towards and embody within the practice of liberation
and decolonization in creative and collaborative choices. The aesthetic of her movement is through
both yoga and contemporary Indian dance forms – mainly a mixture of training in Bharatanatyam,
Odissi and Yorchha™. For more please visit: www.chitravairavan.com or https://linktr.ee/vair0002.
Vairavan has been a proud part of the Mni Sota Makoce dance community for 20 years. Her dance work has been featured transnationally as a founding member and company dancer with Ananya Dance Theatre for 14 seasons, and her choreographic works have been featured in spaces such as The Cowles Center, the Walker Art Center, The Southern Theater, Intermedia Arts, Red Eye Theater, Pillsbury House Theatre and Patrick's Cabaret over the years. Vairavan has been the recipient of the 2016 McKnight Dancer Fellowship, 2018 Naked Stages Fellowship with Pillsbury House Theatre, and the 2020-2021 Springboard for the Artsʼ 20/20 Fellowship among other honors.