Preethi Athreya

Preethi Athreya trained in classical Indian dance and went on to do a postgraduate degree in Dance Studies (Laban Centre, London, 2001). She chose to continue her journey in her native Chennai, with a strong commitment to constantly redefine the Indian body. Working within the Indian contemporary dance scene as a performer, choreographer and facilitator, Preethi has been engaged in creating a personal movement language that reflects her relationship with her context, being at the same time open to new ways in how we may relate to the body. Preethi Athreya has created and co-produced thirteen original works of her own from 2006 to 2023, key among them being The Jumping Project (2015), The Lost Wax Project (2018), BIRD (2021) and INHERITAGE (2023). She has been a resident choreographer at the Cite des Arts, Paris/ CND in 2022, as well as a recipient of the Camargo Foundation’s fellowship in 2021 in Cassis, France. She received the Asia Pacific Performance Exchange (APPEX) residency in Bali in 2010 as well as the Charles Wallace Fellowship in London. In India, she was awarded the Bismillah Khan award for her choreographic contribution by the Ministry of Culture, India. Her work has been featured in forums such as the Szene Salzburg, the 8 Tension series at Impulstanz Vienna, the SouthBank Centre London and the Esplanade theatre in Singapore, among others. Notable in her approach is the configuration of performance space and interaction in new and challenging ways.

Preethi is the founder of CHARCOAL – a platform for artistic collaboration as well as one of the co-founders of Basement 21, a practice-based performance collective in Chennai.