Ketu H. Katrak born in Bombay, India, is a Professor in the Department of Drama at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and affiliated with the Departments of English and Comparative Literature. Katrak is the author of Contemporary Indian Dance: New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, paperback, 2014), Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers (Rutgers University Press, 2006), and Wole Soyinka and Modern Tragedy: A Study of Dramatic Theory and Practice (Greenwood Press, 1986). Katrak has a forthcoming book (in progress) entitled Jay Pather: Performance and Spatial Politics in South Africa. Katrak’s published essays in drama, dance, and performance, postcolonial theory, and African and postcolonial women writers appear in journals such as Amerasia, Modern Fiction Studies, and South Asian Popular Culture, among others. Katrak is the recipient of a Fulbright Research Award to India (2005–2006), University of California, Humanities Research Institute’s Fellowship (2002), The Bunting Institute Fellowship (1988–1989; Harvard University, Radcliffe College), and the University of Massachusetts Chancellor’s Award for Multiculturalism (1993). Katrak was on the Fulbright Senior Specialist roster (2010–2015).

Anita Ratnam, based in Chennai, India, is highly respected as a performer, writer, speaker, and arts entrepreneur and culture mentor. Her four-decade career, with over a thousand performances in twenty-seven countries, intersects the varied disciplines of dance, theater, storytelling, feminist themes, arts production, music, and costume design. Dr. Ratnam’s Neo Bharatam repertoire distills the classical dance traditions of her Bharatanatyam training, with a focus on ritual traditions reinterpreted for the modern concert stage. Using voice, singing, Vedic hymns, drumming, contemporary mythology, and devised movements, her various choreographies include Seven Graces, Ma3ka, A Million Sitas, and Neelam. In 2000, Ratnam created narthaki.com, the largest web portal on Indian dance featuring articles, reviews, directories of events and information on Indian dancers in India and beyond. In January 2017, Dr. Ratnam was awarded the International Arts Award by UK-based Milapfest for her role in initiating and nurturing this significant dance portal over the past seventeen years. As a respected dance advocate interested in cultural policy, Ratnam served on the executive board of several Indian national arts organizations such as the Ministry of Culture (Grants Committee), ICCR (Indian Council for Cultural Relations), and Sangeet Natak Akademi. Anita Ratnam is a voting member of the Dance Critics Association, United States, and a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, United Kingdom.