mesma belsaré
Mesma Belsaré has sustained a distinguished twenty-three year career as a performer, choreographer, and cultural innovator. Her performances span prestigious venues from Lincoln Center and Asia Society in New York to Siri Fort in New Delhi. A recipient of the 2022-23 Dance/USA Fellowship funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, she also holds grants from Cambridge Arts Council, New England Foundation of the Arts, The New Jersey Arts Council, Mid Atlantic Arts and the Government of Delhi Classical Arts Scholarship.
Belsaré trained in two distinct Bharatanatyam lineages—Kalakshetra under Sri Shankar Hombal and Thanjavur under Padmashri Geeta Chandran and Dr. Maya Kulkarni. This rare bi-lineage training coupled with her experience in theater, music, painting, costume, stage, film and graphic design informs her innovative approach to contemporary themes.
Her recent creative works include productions NARCISSUS (2025), SIREN (2024), Jatayu (2023) and Plato's Cave (2020) alongside commissioned dance films Chinnamastā (2022) and In the Creator's Gaze (2020). The New York Times has praised her work as ""a tour de force...an act of transcendence and religious immersion.""
As the only recognized trans Bharatanatyam artist in North America, Belsaré's practice bridges traditional scholarship and contemporary themes. She co-founded Samvād, supporting professional classical dancers, and continues advancing the art form through performance, education, and cultural discourse across multiple disciplines.
abstract
The Alchemy of Displacement: How Diaspora Bodies Carry and Transform Tradition
Presentation & Discussion of New Works
Through two decades of performance practice in the U.S., I have discovered that the immigrant artist's body becomes a living archive carrying not just technique, but the weight of cultural translation.This presentation examines how poetic metaphor, minimal text, and cross-disciplinary training have allowed me to create work that speaks to universal themes of displacement and belonging. Through performance excerpts and discussion, I explore how the immigrant artist's studio becomes a laboratory for cultural evolution and broadening of the creative canvas.