Polina Timina is a researcher and dancer who grew up in Russia, part of a choreographic ensemble specialising in competitive performances, contemporary dance, and Russian folkloric productions. A graduate of Durham University’s Anthropology programme, she has researched embodied practices connected to community, wellbeing, and kinship. She completed her thesis on embodied responses to violence as part of her Master’s in Dance Anthropology. Polina is interested in embodiment at the quotidian level, political performance, affect theory, and phenomenology.
Poline will be presenting alongside Anisha Anantpurkar.
'Touring Russia: A new turn in Kathak history'
"This is a presentation based on a larger research and artistic project on cultural exchanges between Russia and India. We examine the impact of the aesthetic and disciplinary tradition of Russian Imperial ballet on Indian Independence-era Kathak proscenium choreographies of artists such as Kumudini Lakhia and Pt. Birju Maharaj. We look at Russia’s role in providing support to artists of a newly independent nation while deepening internal inequity amongst bearers of the tradition such as courtesans. We pay attention to cultural and political phenomena and concerns about ensuring artistic sustainability. We ask how this exchange impacted the aesthetic and formal choices of a “classical” dance. With India positioning itself as a nation in Non-Alliance with the West, we investigate the impact of Western curiosity about Hindu mythology, and oriental aesthetics on the transmission of the dances in India. Drawing on Stanger’s aesthetics of imperialism, we question why Russia – a colonial power as an Empire, as the USSR, and in the present day – is perceived differently by India than European colonial powers. Further, we expand into the possibilities of creating artistic performances based on this research and how decolonial perspectives can be embodied in it."