Adjunct Professor Parul Shah Named United States Artist Fellow

Department of Theatre and Dance Adjunct Professor Parul Shah has been selected as a United States Artist Fellow, one of the most prestigious national honors awarded to artists working across disciplines in the United States. As part of the fellowship, Shah will receive $50,000 in funding, recognizing her significant contributions to dance, education, and cultural discourse.

United States Artists is dedicated to supporting artists unconditionally, guided by the belief that investing in artists strengthens the cultural and social fabric of society. Through this fellowship, the organization affirms the importance of artists’ voices in broadening perspectives, fostering dialogue, and enriching public life.

A Kathak dancer, choreographer, and educator, Shah spent more than twenty-seven years creating work that confronts cultural narratives and hierarchies that diminish the dignity of South Asian women. Drawing from the rich tradition of North Indian classical dance, her choreography embodies resistance, artistry, and personal agency. Her works center stories of women who push against boundaries, whose labor, histories, and voices have too often been overlooked or erased.

“Rooted in the storytelling traditions of Indian classical dance, my body becomes a vessel where memory, resistance, and transformation intertwine. Through gesture, I give voice to forgotten narratives.”

-Parul Shah

Trained in India by the late, groundbreaking choreographer Kumudini Lakhia, Shah developed a distinctive movement language that expands Indian dance technique while challenging male-dominated and Eurocentric frameworks. Her work has been presented at major venues including City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and Asia Society in New York City. Equally committed to education and community engagement, Shah teachers while pursuing a doctoral degree in Dance Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where her research and pedagogy emphasize embodied practice and critical inquiry to disrupt dominant narratives.

Shah’s selection as a United States Artist Fellow honors both her artistic excellence and her sustained commitment to cultural equity, education, and social impact.