Royona Mitra

Royona has a PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London (2011) on the British-Bangladeshi artist Akram Khan, an MA in Physical Theatre from Royal Holloway, University of London (2001) and a BA (Hons) in Theatre & Performance from the University of Plymouth (2000). She trained in classical and contemporary South Asian dance in India and specialised in physical theatre in the UK. Royona was the founding member and performer with Kinaetma Theatre, an intercultural physical theatre company that made work between India, UK and Portugal from 2002 to 2007.

Prior to joining the Theatre Department at Brunel, Royona was a full-time and permanent academic member of staff in the Drama Department at University of Wolverhampton where she was also the MA Drama Course Leader. She has also taught in the Theatre and Performance Department at the University of Plymouth.

Royona was elected as Secretary to join the Executive Committee for SCUDD (Standing Conference for University Drama Department). She is also a member of SDHS (Society of Dance History Scholars) and TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association).

Research Overview

Royona is currently writing a monograph on the choreographic oeuvre of Akram Khan, the first book length project to examine the works of this seminal British-Asian artist.

She is also working on two further research projects: the first is entitled ‘Mapping British Physical Theatre’ and aims to examine the landscape of British physical theatre/dance theatre practice through a dialogue between scholars and practitioners in the field. The second project is an examination of the five-day Bengali festival of the Pujas (which involves the worship of the Mother Goddess Durga) as a site for British-Bengali diasporic identity representations and the role of Bengali community dance in these negotiations.

Royona regularly presents at international and national conferences and was awarded the New Scholars Prize (2008) by the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR). She has published in Feminist Review journal, Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory and has contributed to edited book projects on performance, culture and identity. She has been an invited speaker at the Research Seminar Series hosted by the Drama Department at the University of Warwick (2008) and also at the Gdansk Dance Festival Annual Conference (2012). Her work on the contemporary female South Asian dancer has been published in The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader.

Teaching Activity

Royona’s teaching specialisms are in the fields of physical theatre/dance–theatre, live art practices, dance and embodiment, intercultural performance and critical theory.

She would be keen to supervise PhD projects in the above areas and also projects that interrogate the relationships between body, culture, sexuality and identity in performance.

Publications

Journal Papers

(2009) Mitra, R., Akram Khan Re-writes ‘Radha’: The ‘Hypervisible’ Cultural Identity in Kylie Minogue’s ‘Showgirl’, Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 19 (1) : 23- 34

(2006) Mitra, R., Living a Body Myth, Performing a Body Reality, Feminist Review. 84 67- 83

Book Chapters

(2010) Mitra, R., Dancing Embodiment, Theorising Space: Exploring the ‘Third Space’ in Akram Khan’s zero degrees. In: Lepecki, A. ed. Planes of Composition: Dance, Theory and the Global. Seagull Books Ltd 40- 63

(2010) Mitra, R., Living a Body Myth, Performing a Body Reality. In: The Feminism and Visual Cultural Reader. Routledge 560- 570

(2010) Mitra, R., Performing Cultural Heritage in 'Weaving Paths' by Sonia Sabri Dance Company. In: Jackson, A. and Kidd, J. eds. Performing Heritage: Research, Practice and Innovation in Museum Theatre and Live Interpretation. university of manchester press 144- 157

(2009) Mitra, R., Embodiment of Memory and the Diasporic Agent in Akram Khan’s Bahok. In: Counsel, C. ed. Performance, Embodiment and Cultural Memory. Cambridge Scholars Press 41- 58

(2005) Mitra, R., Cerebrality: Re-writing Corporeality of a female Indian dancer. In: Birringer, J. ed. . (15) : 167- 183