Creative Research Medal 2025

Rumya Putcha, associate professor in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music and the Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies, explores the cultural politics of Indian dance in transnational contexts. Her book, “The Dancer’s Voice: Performance and Womanhood in Transnational India” (Duke University Press, 2023), examines how South Indian classical dance shapes narratives of caste, race, and migration. Combining ethnographic research and historical analysis, Putcha demonstrates how the figure of the Indian dancing woman reinforces social hierarchies while also serving as a site of resistance. The book has received widespread acclaim for its interdisciplinary approach, engaging ethnomusicology, performance studies, and postcolonial theory. It has been reviewed in leading academic journals and was recognized with the 2024 de la Torre Bueno First Book Award from the Dance Studies Association and the 2025 Bernard S. Cohn First Book Award from the Association for Asian Studies. Through this work, Putcha offers a critical rethinking of how performers cultivate citizenship in India and its diasporas.