Debanjali Biswas is a doctoral scholar in performance studies and cultural anthropology at India Institute, King’s College London. Her thesis ‘Performance and Violence in Everyday Life in Manipur’ is an ethnography on Meitei performative traditions, lineage of violence in contemporary Manipur which she completed on the Commonwealth Scholarship. She has previously read Theatre and Performance Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, and Social Anthropology at SOAS, UK. She has scholarly interests in anthropology of dance, anthropology of violence and everyday lives, photo-ethnography and artistic practices of south Asia.
Theatre and Performance Publications
(2016) ‘Assembling Dance History of Manipur through a Life Narrative: Thiyam Suryamukhi Devi’ in Eastern Quarterly. 12 (I-II). New Delhi: Manipur Research Forum (ISSN 0975-4962). pp 5-15
(2013) ‘Ritual Objects and Ritualised Bodies’ in Gendering Material Culture: Representations and Practice. Subhadra M. Channa (ed.) Jaipur: Rawat Books pp 183 – 198.
(2012) ‘Her Body, Her Story: Situating the Maibis in the ritual-performance of Lai Haraoba’, Journal of Indian Anthropological Society. 47(1): 29-38.
(2012) ‘Whose dance is it anyway?’ in Dancing Mosaic: Issues on Dance Hybridity. Mohd. Anis Md. Nor (ed.) Kuala Lumpur: Cultural Centre University of Malaya and National Department for Culture and Arts pp – 193-210
Biswas D, A. Ghosh. (2010) ‘The Altered Space: Community dances from everyday to the proscenium’, in Urmimala Sarkar & Stephanie Burridge (eds.), in Traversing Traditions: Celebrating Dance in India. New Delhi: Routledge pp-192- 211.
Performance and Artistic Collaborations
A skilled performer of Manipuri, Biswas is a co-director of performance collaborative, Mitrādheya. https://www.facebook.com/Mitradheya/
She has received training in various genres of Manipuri under the tutelage of Smt. Poushali Chatterjee in late Guru Bipin Singh’s style since 1992. She is an active member of Nandanik Movement Arts, India and an empanelled artist with Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
Some of her choreographies were showcased at the India/UK Year of Culture – The Buckingham Palace and the House of Comons (2017); An East Wind – A Season of Bangla Drama-Tower Hamlets (2016); Basantabaul — on Tagore & Thoreau in North America, UK, Germany, India (2013-18); Bound — Gati Summer Dance Residency, New Delhi (2012); Indian Rain — MyDance Festival, Kuala Lumpur (2011); Play and Error — Internationales Sommerlabor, Frankfurt (2010); Wintering — International Young Choreographers’ Project, Kaohsiung (2009).