Researchers - Uttara Asha Coorlawala

Uttara Asha Coorlawala, Ph.D. has been teaching technique and theoretical dance courses at Long Island University's C.W. Post Campus, Barnard College (Columbia University) and at Princeton NJ. She served as editor for the Newsletter of the Congress Of Research in Dance for four years and continues as a member of the Editorial Board for Dance Research Journal. A regular correspondent for Sruti (India's leading magazine for Music and dance) she participates in or covers intercultural and Asian-American dance events. Her articles have been published in Dance Chronicle, Dance Research Journal, Animated, Sangeet Natak Akademi Journal and included in anthologies on Indian and intercultural dance.

Born in Hyderabad and educated in India and the U.S.A., Uttara's career has been atypical, falling into three phases, first as a student and performer of modern dance in New York based dance companies. Next she went on to perform internationally as a soloist performing and developing her New Indian dance, and currently she works as scholar and professor of dance. Her preparation in India, included studies in yoga with B.K.S. Iyengar, BharataNatyam in the Kalakshetra style, and studies in Ancient Indian Culture at St. Xavier's Heras Indological Institute. She transferred to Smith College, Mass. graduating with the Phi-Sigma-Psi honor award, and went on to train in modern dance at the Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham studios while running a dance program at The Spence School, New York, and dancing with New York's great dance companies as Ballet Hispanico, Pearl Lang, and Daniel Maloney. During this time, she performed the works of choreographers as diverse as Talley Beatty, Alvin Ailey, Yvonne Rainer, Sun Ock Lee and Kei Takei.

As a dancer-choreographer, Coorlawala returned to India to pioneer what is now a growing trend towards intercultural innovation. Her choreographic style and performances brought her three disciplines, modern dance, Bharata Natyam and yoga to the dance stage. She danced throughout India, Europe, East Europe, Japan and the United States and as a designated cultural representative of India and for the United States Information service. She has participated in recent intercultural and Indian dance events as consultant and mentor and most recently was the recipient of an International award sponsored jointly by the British and Indian governments, the Dadabhai Naoroji Lifetime Achievement Award.

As a dance scholar, she has received the Graduate Research Award from CORD, an organization for dance research and scholarship, with membership worldwide. She was also elected to Kappa Delta Pi, the National Honour Society of Educators for excellence in research. In 1970-71, she received the JRDIII Rockefeller Fellowship in the USA; in 1978-80, the Homi Bhabha Fellowship in India. Her work has been archived in the Dance Research Collection of the New York Public Library, and has been featured in the 'International Encyclopedia of Dance'. Sections of her doctoral thesis and other writings are required reading for courses at Barnard, Columbia, UCLA and Temple University, among others.