Navtej Johar
Navtej Singh Johar is an Indian Sangeet Natak Akademi award-winning Bharatnatyam exponent and choreographer. He is also an LGBTQ activist.
Life and career
Johar is faculty at Ashoka University, Sonipat. He is trained in Bharatanatyam at Kalakshetra, a dance school of Rukmini Arundale at Chennai, and with Leela Samson at the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra in New Delhi. He also studied later at the Department of Performance Studies, New York University. He has received numerous fellowships for his research such as the Times of India Fellowship, and the Charles Wallace Fellowship.Johar has collaborated with composers Stephen Rush, Shubha Mudgal and installation artist Sheba Chhachhi among others. He has also acted in Earth by Deepa Mehta and Khamosh Pani by Sabiha Sumar.
He is among the few male dancers of classical form in India and first Sikh to have taken to the art form.