Curators

Padmini Chettur began her contemporary dance career in 1990 as a member of the troupe of Chandralekha—the radical Bharatanatyam modernist choreographer, whose own opus dealt with a rigorous deconstruction of the form.

Over the past two decades, Chettur has defined her own choreographic idiom—minimalist, abstract and formal—stripping movement down to an essential, anatomical investigation, prioritising a sense of tension over emotion.

She sometimes lectures and teaches. Her approach to pedagogy in the context of contemporary dance in India holds a critique of the institutional, often Eurocentric thinking around technique, aesthetic and discourse.

Her most recent performative work ‘Stilling’ was premiered at G5A, Mumbai, in April 2024. Its video version premiered in the Dystopia Biennial 2024, Berlin. Her latest project ‘Of a denser time’ premiered at the Berlin Biennale 2025.