Dominique Savitri Bonarjee (chi/mer)

I'm an artist with a diverse cultural heritage, which translates into an unusual art practice: I seem to be guided by the logic of water, and its properties of fluidity and metamorphosis. After studying illustration, fashion and economics, I realise the body, rather than clothing or representing it, is my medium. I complete an MA in Performance Practice & Design at Central St Martins, University of the Arts London. From there, I go on to become an independent artist and wanderer, settling in Japan for many years, to research postwar performance art. My focus is  the origins of Butoh dance linked to the economic transformation of Japan in the aftermath of the atomic bombs. My first monograph publication, “Butoh, as Heard by a Dancer” (Routledge, 2024) examines postwar Butoh dance legacies and their relevance to today’s ecological and societal crises. My Art PhD at Goldsmiths University of London (2024), entitled Space of the Nameless, is a somatic account of my engagement with the unknown through 'undisciplined' methods and collaborative ways of making art.

Meditations on Disappearance, score (2024): cyanotype on seaweed membrane

Somatic Revolutions / Listening Protests / Temporosity / Water Body / Right to Opacity

Collapse / Love and Water / Dance of Darkness / Body Material / Ekagrata

Networks

Through dance, sound, and materiality, I create immersive environments that remind audiences of the strangeness, the unknown, that inhabits their own bodies, and the mystery that each life contains.

Below are links to the expanded network of my practice, some of my beloved collaborators, beings and spaces that nurture true diversity and perpetuate practices for nameless becomings.

Sissel Marie Tonn, artist

Mika Satomi, artist

Indra Adnan, founder of 'The Alternative'

Butoh Mutations, classes, retreats, community

Embodiment Hackathon developed with Sissel Marie Tonn, Sussex University (2022)

Dominique's immersive art beautifully blends dance, sound, and materials, creating captivating experiences that resonate deeply.

Emma Black

★★★★★