Archive · 4 Oct 2026
Mumbai Choreographer Selected for Taiwan’s International Young Choreographer Project
Shruti Maria Datar is a choreographer from Mumbai who makes dance to explore people’s lives and histories.
In 2026, she was chosen for a dance project in Taiwan with seven other emerging choreographers.
She worked with Taiwanese dancers on a piece about work that women often do without recognition.
As she listened to the dancers, she changed the piece to focus more on tiredness and pressure to keep working.
Datar also received a scholarship to study dance in London.
In Mumbai, she is researching the East Indian community and the stories, songs and everyday movements that help keep its culture alive.
She believes culture is not frozen in the past; people continue to shape it.
She is also working to build an independent dance practice that can last.
Shruti Maria Datar was selected as one of eight emerging choreographers for the 2026 International Young Choreographer Project in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and is the only Indian in the cohort.
At the residency, she developed Strands of Duty with Taiwanese dancers, exploring women’s often-unseen labour and later shifting focus toward exhaustion and fatigue.
Datar received a 2026 Global South Scholarship to pursue an MA in Dance: Participation, Communities and Activism at London Contemporary Dance School.
An India Foundation for the Arts grant supports her research into Mumbai’s East Indian community, including its oral histories, cultural practices and embodied knowledge.
Her work examines how culture, gender, labour and history shape bodies, while she also navigates the practical challenges of sustaining an independent dance practice.
- Who
- Shruti Maria Datar, a Mumbai-based choreographer, was selected as the only Indian in the 2026 International Young Choreographer Project cohort.
- What
- She was selected for the Taiwan project and is also pursuing dance studies in London and researching Mumbai’s East Indian community.
- When
- The selection, scholarship and grant are for 2026; the article does not give the residency dates.
- Where
- The project is in Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Datar’s studies are in London, and her community research is in Mumbai.
- Why
- Her work investigates how bodies carry and express ideas about labour, gender, culture, memory and whose knowledge is valued.
- Choreographer
- Shruti Maria Datar
- Project
- International Young Choreographer Project (IYCP), 2026
- Cohort
- Eight emerging choreographers; Datar is the only Indian participant
- Project location
- Kaohsiung, Taiwan
- Taiwan work
- Strands of Duty, developed with Taiwanese dancers
- London studies
- MA in Dance: Participation, Communities and Activism at London Contemporary Dance School
- Mumbai research
- Research into the East Indian community, supported by an India Foundation for the Arts Arts Research Grant