chinmaya vedantam
Chinmaya Vedantam is a Kuchipudi dancer, cultural researcher, and counselling psychology graduate student based in Toronto. Rooted in the Kuchipudi Bhagavatula tradition, her practice centers on storytelling as epistemology—bridging performance, oral tradition, and embodied knowledge. Her current research explores the intersection of South Indian classical dance forms, vernacular philosophy, and healing systems, particularly through the Kalapam tradition of Kuchipudi. She has performed internationally, including as part of an Indian Centre for Cultural Relations (ICCR) cultural diplomacy initiative across Europe and the UK, and is passionate about preserving and evolving Indigenous art forms through both creative and scholarly inquiry.
abstract
Churning the Divine: Oral Epistemologies and the Sciences of Kalapam in Kuchipudi Tradition
Research Talk
This talk explores how the Kalapam tradition within Kuchipudi dance functions as a moving philosophical archive. Through the figures of Satyabhama and the Gollabhama, Kalapam blends Vedanta, Ayurveda, caste critique, and folk science into embodied performance. Drawing on oral texts, metaphors of milk, and Telugu cosmology, this paper examines how dance becomes a site of epistemology, subaltern knowledge, and feminist pedagogy. It traces Kuchipudi Kalapam from its origins in the Kuchipudi Bhagavatula community to its revival in diasporic practice, where memory is not read but danced.