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DANCE, DRAG & DRAMA

Artist Bio

Patruni Chidananda Sastry is a Classical Dancer, Intrapreneur and Customer Service Expert . Patruni started dancing since the age of 7. Patruni Sastry unique style called "Expressionism" is a new way to tell stories of awareness to the society .Patruni Sastry contributes his attribute of dance with many organization like Mobbera Foundation, Mental Health Organization, Good Universe ,Mist ,Namma Pride , Human Library and the Humsafar trust . He has also been part of many dance festivals including Golden Beach Festival, Kalpashree dance festival and so on .Patruni also used his skill to bring in visualization to complex numerical and conceptual subject and processed a new way to represent data. Patruni also created a new style of poetry reciting and storytelling. Patruni has worked on a unique style of dance called the "Expressionism “where he believes to radiate social awareness through dance.

 

Patruni Chidananda Sastry believe in channeling his dancing urges in order to produce unique footsteps. Sastry’s inspiration for his work is the miracle of life and interest to learn more. Working as an Analyst in in the Tech Industry, makes him relate business with dance. He is a Classical dancer who love to perform in boardrooms and business meetings, which allows his perspective as an artist to remain contemporary yet traditional. Dance is how he battle against the complexity of numbers and offer new ways to visualize the data to clients. Patruni Sastry started learning Bharatanatyam from prominent gurus Sri Kalamandalam Ventak in Kolkata and Smt Vaidehi Subhash and Sri Hari Mangalampalli from Hyderabad. He also learned Oddisi from Swayam pragyan shahoo and Preeti Mohapatra . He learnt Kuchipudi from Sri Siva Kumar. Sastry  carries a Diploma in Bharatanatyam and a certification of Avant Grade art Butoh from KEOI University.

 

Patruni Sastry learned Butoh an Avant grade art form from Japan from Adam Koan and started practising Performance Art with the mentor-ship of Victoria Nivadita an acclaimed Performance Artist from Chennai. Patruni also worked with Renowned Absurd-ism director Amaan Ahemad from Hyderabad Under whom he performed in theater production "Skepticism".

Patruni has also been performing Tranimal Drag under the drag name of  Suffocated Art Specimen (S.A.S). His style for drag brings unique footprints of anti art queen.Tranimal Drag Art has been given a new Indianian approach with his style. With S.A.S , he presented multiple performance in spaces like Hyderabad Lit Festival, Kitty Su and Kitty Ko. he has also been listed as a top performer in Pink News and co founded Dragvanti an online website for drag community in India.

Production

  • Pancha Pandhakas (Untold Queer characters of Indian Mythology)

  • La Nari (why women to suffer)

  • Wild Cry (Advance act on animal abuse)

  • Aratrika (Indulging with Alcohol Addiction )

  • The closet (A dance act on Gender fluidity )

  • La Sya (the journey of gender fluidity)

  • Kavach -(all about safe sex)

  • Nir-rod- (Condom)

  • Kusumey -the divine flowers

  • Unboxing the gender 

  • Out of the box

  • the box of Gender Expression

  • Nagavalli -A classical Butoh presentation

  • Unihorn - Homosexuality in Animals​

Performance Art Pieces Includes

  • Four Play (Performance art of Same-sex Marraiges)

  • Strip Tease :- #Men too 

  • What's my Colour

  • Untag :- the Mordred day feminism

  • Patra :- the performance on menstrual cup

  • Invisible Sounds

  • Mood Swings

  • 69 - A performance on Status co of patriacy

  • Curtificate- A performance opposing Transgender act 2019

  • REDLIGHT - a performance opposing CAA/NRC

  • WeLACK- A performance on Black Life Matters movement

  • Yours Virtually - a performance on Virtual Isolation

 

Testimonials

This is what Hindustan times would like to say about Patruni Sastry Patruni’ s “Sastry  Gender-bending Bharatanatyam Recital was an anecdote to address critical awareness on LGBTQIA “ and followed by The ladies compartment” With more artists like Sastry,  making themselves seen and heard, however, the slowly changing face of classical Indian dance can certainly revive its (former) glory of being an non-gendered, non-sexualized and inclusive form of self-expression — perhaps even a few shades better.   ”  

Patruni Sastry has been performing in many national and international dance festivals. Some of them include and time and then keep involving in many social outreaches such as TEDx IBA speaker. In his TEDx talk at Indus business academy Bangalore he delivered a talk that has all the thought-provoking, storytelling components TEDx audiences’ love.  Titled “from dance to data”. In it, he outlines what it means when help is not a choice but a compulsion.

The takeaways the audience to walked with were technicalities  how classical dance can be used as a data visualization technique ,why we need to focus more dancing skills for outsourcing business and encourage our youth into this field ,how can dance give a better customer service , creative thinking and team bonding skills.

Patruni has also been part of short and documentary files such as Polar night where he acted the role of the Protagonist. He also worked as a editor and curator for India's first silent dance film "Shoonyam" and been editor and producer for Seventy by Hundred. Majority of his work has been guided by renowned film maker Rakesh Asiletti.

 

Apart from that he has also been a Book at Human Library Hyderabad and Human Library Bangalore, became an Artist of collaboration with Namma Pride and Mental Health foundation, Spoke at Pecha Kucha, Volunteered for Peta and so on and so forth.

Styles and Re-Works 

Classical Butoh : Patruni Sastry worked on bringing a afresh forms of moment with developing an Indian version of Japanese form Butoh . He coined "Indian classic Butoh" where he used the technicalities of Butoh with mudras and mandalas of Indian classical forms.

Sufiyattam :an amalgamation of classical forms for the tunes of sufi poetry . Sastry created a new and adrift form called as the Sufiyattam using essence of natyashastra with modren technique to make a lucid representation for sufism 

Pseudo Natyam: Inspired by the western dance "Free style". Sastry recoiled and crafted Pseudo natyam where a dancer rather than sticking to one traditional form, brings and uses multiple Indian dance forms on spot. Pseudo natyam is an Imprompt  , un-choreographed dance form where the Manodharma is the primary elements .

Happenings: A happening is a performance, event, or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related event or multiple events.

Neo Performance Arts: Performance art is a performance presented to an audience within a fine art context, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated, spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or via media; the performer can be present or absent. It can be any situation that involves four basic elements: time, space, the performer's body, or presence in a medium, and a relationship between performer and audience. Performance art can happen anywhere, in any type of venue or setting and for any length of time. The actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time constitute the work.

Indian Tranimal Drag : Patruni Performed Tranimal drag with the drag name Suffocated Art Specimen (S.A.S) . Initially they use to perform with the name "Mohini D'vi". Tranimal is a drag and performance art movement that began in the mid 2000s in Los Angeles. Deriving from 'transvestite' the aim was to create interpretive, animalistic and post-modern interpretations of the 'drag queen'.Tranimal drag is the drag of poor, available drag queens. It does not throw money on clothes and cosmetics, and works on only one belief: “this will do”. Tranimal drag performers make outfits themselves with available trash. They look vigorous, and they momentarily erase beauty and gender norms. When  sas perform tranimal they are liberated, It become the drag queen who doesn’t wear heels, but performs bare-footed for the less privileged community that I try to remind myself of.

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