Anurima Banerji, a PhD student in Performance Studies, has been awarded the prestigious 2007 CORD Award for Outstanding Graduate Research. In her paper, "Paratopias of Performance: The Choreographic Practices of Chandralekha Performance", she suggests another way of conceptualizing aesthetic performance in the realm of movement: what she calls the “paratopia." The “para” phenomenon describes something that exists adjacent to, alongside, and against the dominant logic; more significantly, it has the capacity to alter and contest it. The “topia” is the ground inhabited, claimed, and carved out by visionary dance practices. She will argue that the paratopia, as a space of alterity, is a powerful (though ephemeral) place created by the migrating, politicized, dancing body.
