Mr Satkirti Sinha

Satkirti Sinha is an international researcher and folk theatre practitioner who has recently joined the Performing Arts department at DMU University for his PhD studies. He is currently working on a folk theatre Bidesiya, which was started by Bhikhari Thakur in 1917 on the issue of the inhumane practice of caste segregation prevailing in Hinduism. His research interest is dynamic Migration of suppressed community from India, cross-dressing dance form, spirituality and mythology in theatre, sexual politics, Caste and Gender discrimination in artistic style, and Dalit theology.

Institute of Drama, Dance and Performance Studies

Review
1: Sinha, Satkirti. Review of New Postcolonial Dialectics: An Intercultural Comparison of Indian and Nigerian Plays, by Sarbani Sen Vengadasalam. Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 37 no. 2, 2020, p. 590-592. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/atj.2020.0046.

2: Sinha, Satkirti. Review of Cultural Labour: Conceptualising the Folk Performance in India, by Brahma Prakash. Platform Journal of Theatre and Performing Arts, vol. 14 no. 1, 2020, p. 183-187. https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/research-and-teaching/departments-and-schools/drama-theatre-and-dance/studying-here/postgraduate-research/platform-journal/current-issue/

• Diaspora Culture
• Sexual Politics
• Gender Studies
• Cross-dress Theatre
• Dalit’s identity
• Migrant’s Performing Arts Culture
• Feminist Theory

• Indian Folk Culture
• Popular Culture 
• Marginalized Performing Arts
• Spirituality and Mythology in Performing Arts
• Obscenity and Sexuality in Indian culture

B.Tech in Geoinformatics, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, India
MA by Research in Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway, University of London

Presented Paper on the topic of “Musical Performance in the Culture of Decolonization in the SOUTH ASIA and its diaspora” (2017); at Horniman Museum, London, UK. 
Presented Paper on “Bidesiya Theatre: Folk drama on Indian Diaspora to Caribbean Land and Launda Naach” in the Theatre and Performance Research Association Annual Conference (2017); at London, UK. 
Participated in “Radical Ecosexual Arts Against Climate Catastrophe” (2020) session organized under Borderline 2020-2021 Seminar Series; at DMU University, Leicester.

Title

Suppression, Indianisation, and Survival of Dalit Hindu’s cultural identity

Abstract

Satkirti’s PhD research seeks to understand the role of obscenity, sexuality and morality in the performing arts culture of the Dalit community from Bihar, India. The study further focuses on the taboos of the Hindu caste system and the inhuman practise of untouchability by working on the cultural history of cross-dressing Bidesiya style. 
The research raises questions on Victorian morality and its impact on elite caste Hindu’s, which led to the further marginalisation of caste-based society in India. And put forward an argument to demystify the false notion established by elite caste that it was Dalits who brought obscenity and sexuality in Hinduism.

Dr Louise Peacock, Dr Lyndsey Bakewell