Choreographer, Director, Filmmaker, Poet, Educator, and Performance Studies Scholar
Image description: Performance set of a lit house and 4 hanging paper panels with mountain projections. 3 performers with bamboo-paper mountain backpacks, cluster center stage under bright light. Performers weave across the stage with bamboo-paper mountains flying. Seated on the stage floor, performers crafts toy mountain. A wavy bamboo mesh with paper frames stuck onto it. In front of a projection of a forest with eyes, performers pose on stage. 2 in plain attire left & right. 2 in paper skirts upstage center. A Kutiyattam performer, as Sugriva, with arms poised in midair. Percussionists behind him. Two performers reach out over one another. One performer swings his arm, and the other performer drops to the floor.
Image description: Performance set of a lit house and 4 hanging paper panels with mountain projections. 3 performers with bamboo-paper mountain backpacks, cluster center stage under bright light. Performers weave across the stage with bamboo-paper mountains flying. Seated on the stage floor, performers crafts toy mountain. A wavy bamboo mesh with paper frames stuck onto it. In front of a projection of a forest with eyes, performers pose on stage. 2 in plain attire left & right. 2 in paper skirts upstage center. A Kutiyattam performer, as Sugriva, with arms poised in midair. Percussionists behind him. Two performers reach out over one another. One performer swings his arm, and the other performer drops to the floor.
Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren is an Indian-American hard-of-hearing choreographer, director, educator, and Performance Studies scholar. Her transdisciplinary artistic research focuses on performance, ecology, disability, and heritage in order to develop new approaches to accessible eco-theatres.
Kanta’s work focuses on:
Critical Spatial Studies
Hearing Differently
Performance and Ecology
Cross-cultural Collaborations
Current and Recent Projects
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![[Image Description:An illustration of abstract earthy human bodies metamorphising into forms of natural landscapes. The text advertises the upcoming performance of In the Blue Houses Dream the Mountains at the Natyasasthra Katampazhipuram, Palakkad o]()
In the Blue Houses Dream the Mountains
In the Blue Houses Dream the Mountains, which draws on Contemporary Dance, Kutiyattam, Poothan Thira, and Kalaripayattu, focuses onthe beauty and fragility of our mountains while it sheds light on the pressing challenges of climate change. The work tells the story of a Walker and his journey to collect mountain stories from across India and the US before it is too late.
This project is an accessible theater that provides a multisensory experience. It includes Audio Description in Malayalam for Blind/VI audience members and Indian Sign Language Interpretation for Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing audience members.
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![Image Description: Guru Kalamandalam Rama Chakyar demonstrates the mudras and gives notes on Kutiyattam. In the background, Kanta in white skirt, red blouse, and high headgear with two percussionists]()
Kutiyattam Training & Arangetram
As a key part of the BRM Project 2023, a research residency program took place in collaboration with the revered Guru Kalamandalam Rama Chakyar. Under his expert guidance, Dr. Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren's immersion in Kutiyattam, a transformative journey, has focused on the significance of stories about mountains within the classical performance form. On 21 July 2024 Kanta performed "Govardhanodharanam” at the Palunkil Shiva Narayana Temple, Killimangalam. Govardhanodharanam details the lifting of Mount Govardhana by Lord Krishna and giving shelter to the Gopas against Indra`s wrath. Subsequent performances are planned for 2025.
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![Image Description: Outline of a mountain in the shadows across a tan and white bamboo and paper mountain. At the bottom is "Toward a Different Earth," underneath Braille dots, and on top Sign Language for TDE. 9 figures under the mountain]()
Towards a Different Earth: An Accessible Eco-theatres Arts Residency
Towards a Different Earth (TDE), a collaboration on an Accessible Eco-Theatres Arts Residency, connected college youth, Deaf/Hard-of-hearing and Blind/VI communities, service providers for Indian Sign Language (ISI) and Audio Description, and theatre practitioners in Thrissur, India, with experts in Accessible Theatres. The Residency included: 1) A Webinar Series on Accessible Eco-Theatres; 2) In-person mixed ability workshops for diverse participants that focused on the co-creation of an accessible theatre work on mountains and climate change; 3) A public showing (with live-streaming) of the theatre work, and 4) A webinar which showcased our “how-to” documentary film.
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![Image Description: Nine boats are scattered over water with a red ballon floating up. The text advertises the upcoming Listening Academy with contributing artists and programme sponsors.]()
Listening Academy Hong Kong
“The Listening Academy is an independent research academy focusing on listening as a philosophical, artistic, social and somatic issue. The Listening Academy 2024 was held from 3 – 7 November, 2024 as a one-week sound art programme that is unprecedented in Hong Kong.”
:: the wanderer, the pirate, and the ear of the other: Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren in conversation with Brandon LaBelle ::
How is hearing differently activated? How are hearing difference, wandering, disability, and ecology connected? Why do these matter? How does the pirate provide certain input into conceiving approaches to learning and pedagogy?
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![Image Description: A red and green map of the world with the book title, South Asian Disability and Deaf Theatres, and author’s name, Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren.]()
South Asian Disability and Deaf Theatres (2025)
South Asian Disability and Deaf Theatres investigates translocal intimacies in relation to 21st century transnational South Asian disability theatres in order to lay out new possibilities for accessible theatres. The first book to cover theatre and Disability Studies in India, it shows that disability literature and theatres assist in delineating ways of reworking the politics of intimacy and belonging within and across differences. The book makes an important contribution to the broad field of theatre, performance and Disability Studies as well as Feminist Studies and South Asian Studies. (Forthcoming January 28, 2025)
