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Sumitra Nitin is an accomplished and renowned Carnatic music vocalist and Bharatanatyam dancer with a performing career spanning over four decades. She is also a highly respected teacher of both these art forms at her institution ‘Natyasruti’ in Bengaluru. Sumitra has several acclaimed thematic performances in music and dance both as soloist and along with her students. She has also performed the lead role in an English play produced by a leading theatre company in India.

Bio

Mathur R Srinidhi, disciple of Vidwan R.R. Keshava Murthy and Vidwan R.N. Tyagarajan, is one of the leading violinists today. He has performed all over India and abroad with many eminent musicians and has also many solo performances to his credit. He is an A graded artiste of the All India Radio. He has an M.Sc in Biotechnology and an M.A in music from Madras University. His awards include ‘Ananya Yuva Puraskara’ and ‘Lalitha Kala Suma’.

Bio

Adamya had his initial training under Vid MA Krishnamurthy and advanced training under Padma Vibhushana awardee Umayalpuram Sri K Sivaraman. He is also receiving guidance from Vid Arjun Kumar.

Adamya is an A graded artist of All India Radio and Doordarshan for the past 10 years now. He is a recipient of first place in AIR National level annual music competition in the year 2003, He is a recipient of CMANA award from Percussive Art Center, Ragalayaprabha from Rama Lalitha Kala Mandira and Ananya Yuva Puraskara from Ananya GML Academy. His performance career spans close to three decades and he has also been guiding young mridanga aspirants for the past decade.

Bio

Amritha Ramprasad, Manhushri Balakrishnan, Tanusri Balakrishnan, Pratiksha B Deekshadar, Nethra Ramakrishnan, Sahana Kaushik, Saanvi Prasanna and Neeraj Raja P K.

Bio

Soni Wadhwa currently teaches Literature Studies at SRM University, Andhra Pradesh. Her approach to Sufism is informed by her reading of Sindhi Literature, some of which is visible in her digital archive of Sindhi books, PG Sindhi Library and her work on the institutions of Sindhi libraries in India. She has recently received a grant from George Mason University for her research on the making of Sindhi literature as an Indian literature. Her book reviews appear in Asian Review of Books, Digital Orientalist, and Full Stop.

Bio

Harpreet is a versatile artiste, who sings original musical compositions in Hindi and a number of regional Indian Languages and dialects such as Punjabi, Bengali, Assamese, Rajasthani and Haryanvi. He is best known for creating musical scores to epic works of humanist poets like Kabir and Bullhe Shah. The rhythmic blend of soulful poetry to the pulsating sound of guitar and percussion are unique and innovative, while at the same time familiar and foreign.

Harpreet has performed at many prestigious Festivals in India and abroad.

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Anagha Bhat is a Hindustani classical vocalist based in Bengaluru, India. She is a disciple of Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar, one of India’s most prominent musicians with mastery over three styles or gharanas – Gwalior, Agra and Jaipur. Anagha has also been a senior scholar at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata and received her initial training under Vidushi Geeta Hegde, based in Bangalore.

Some milestones in Anagha’s musical journey include the Pt. Mallikarjun Mansur Rashtreeya Yuva Puraskaar – Dharwad, Mani Maan Fellowship – by Sanskriti Foundation, New Delhi INLAKS music fellowship – Mumbai, National fellowship by the Ministry of Culture, ITC- SRA scholarship – Kolkata, amongst several others. She has performed extensively in India & abroad at festivals and other events.

Anagha holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science Engineering and a Master’s degree in Hindustani vocal music, and in Psychology.

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Tabla artiste Sagar Bharathraj is the son and disciple of Shri Bharathraj Venkat Rao from Calicut, Kerala, who is a senior disciple of Shri. Omkar Gulvady. After coming to Bangalore for his post graduation in chemical engineering, Sagar learnt under Shri Ravindra Yavagal for a short while and has also undergone vocal accompaniment training from Smt. Aditi Upadhya. Sagar is a research scientist with a chemical engineering background. A triple gold medalist for Btech from NIT Calicut, MTech & PhD from IISc Bangalore, Sagar was also awarded the National Award for the best MTech thesis in chemical engineering. He is currently a research scientist with numerous international patents and publications to his credit, in the renewable energy arena, working as an Associate Director with Samsung Semiconductor India RnD, Bangalore.

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Surya Upadhyaya is a talented harmonium player who began his musical journey under Pandit Ananth Bhagwat and continues to learn from Pt. Ravindra Katoti. With a strong academic background, including Chartered Accountancy, he has earned recognition from esteemed Hindustani vocalists like Pandit Rajan Sajan Mishra and Pandit Vinayak Torvi. Surya has performed with renowned artists, including Shri Hariharan and Shri Shankar Mahadevan, and had the honor of playing for a Kathak workshop led by the legendary Pandit Birju Maharaj. His versatility extends to percussion instruments like Mridangam and Ghatam, captivating audiences with his soulful renditions and sincere approach to music.

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Douce Dibondo is an essayist, poet, and performer. Through the exploration of writing as spirit, she delves into the theme of Blackness, intertwined with queerness, feminism, ancestry, and decoloniality. Through her breaths, she attempts to tear through the veils of the Western worldview. She thus invokes a multidimensional present, in perpetual revolution, through fiction, essays, poetry, and performance. She is the author of two poetry collections, métacures (2022) and infra/seum (2023) published by Blast, and an essay, La Charge Raciale, Vertige d’un silence écrasant (2024) published by Fayard. Douce is also the co-founder of Extimité, a podcast which opens doors of intimacy to multi-minoritized LGBTQ+ people, allowing them to tell their life’s story.

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Hameeda Syed is a Shia Kashmiri journalist with over five years of experience in writing, reporting, management, and research, focusing on the intersections of society and gender. She explores stories of justice through the intersection of identities, cultures, and power. In parallel, she also engages with systems that make these stories possible by contributing to initiatives on these boundaries. As a writer and researcher, Hameeda has contributed to various platforms like Third Eye Social, Khabar Lahariya, and the Thomas Reuters Foundation, tackling issues ranging from women’s rights and human trafficking to mental health and online misogyny. She has led programs at organizations like Dignity in Difference and Girl Up India, promoting gender justice and digital resilience across South Asia. A recipient of numerous accolades, including a UNESCO-LiiV Center grant, Hameeda is also a postgraduate diploma holder in Gender Equality Studies from the University of Iceland and an advocate for fostering empathy and co-creating a gender-just world.

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Jamal Ouazzani is a French-Moroccan Muslim ‘artivist’, writer, poet, film director & screenwriter. After 10 years spent in major international advertising agencies (Paris, Dubai, Shanghai, NYC), after reading over 1000 books on gender studies, race and feminism, he has become a DEI consultant and a keynote speaker. With a Master’s degree from ESSEC Business School in Management and another one in Cinema from La Sorbonne, he aims to debunk myths and change representations. As a human rights activist, he raises his voice against inequalities and any type of discrimination. He is also the voice behind JINS Podcast (@jins_podcast on Instagram), the very 1st podcast that addresses feminism, love, sexuality and gender for BIPoC and/or Muslims, totalling 500K+ streams and 32K+ loyal listeners, making it a reference in the field, especially within Muslim communities of the US, Europe & the MENA region. After an art residency program at Villa Albertine (Los Angeles) for 2 months, he came up with the third season of the podcast entirely focused on ‘Representations of Arabs & Muslims from Hollywood to the Arab world’. He’s also the author of ‘LOVE’, a book on how we can learn from Islam and Arab cultures to rethink our conceptions of love.

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Kadir Özdemir is an author, theatre maker, and political educator. After studying Modern History and Sociology, Kadir Özdemir has been working for over 20 years in the fields of migration, participation, intersectionality, and empowerment. He is a founding member of the Postmig Writers Collective, Prisma Queer Migrants e.V., and Migrationserb:innen. In 2022, he served as a writer-in-residence for the Aachen region at the Ludwig Forum for International Art and Heinrich-Böll-Haus. In the same year, he was selected by the Federal Academy for Cultural Education Wolfenbüttel in the field of literature. In 2023, he implemented a literary project on the new peace movement in Japan (Hiroshima and Osaka). He has published in numerous anthologies and contributed columns. Since 2023, he has been the director of the collecting:dreams festival.

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Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç (*1989) is a political scientist and award-winning poet based in Berlin. He studied social sciences in Vienna, Berlin and Cambridge and teaches at Berlin universities. While he is the author of a growing number of non-fiction books on migration and anti-Muslim racism, Prinzenbad (2022, Elif Verlag) is his literary debut which earned him nominations for both the Heidelberg Clemens Brentano Prize as well as the Dresden Poetry Prize in 2024. This year he will be awarded 2nd place in the Feldkirch Poetry Prize in Austria.
His texts are published in various literary journals and anthologies and translated into different languages, including English, Italian, Kazakh and Czech. Keskinkılıç’s work is featured in multimedia art exhibitions at the Grassi Museum Leipzig, the Literaturpassage Vienna and most recently at the ACUD Gallery in Berlin. In his poems, Muslim spirituality, memory and queer desire make up the literary coordinates for a futurist journey through alternative geographies.

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Poongodi Mathiarasu, a recognized folk artist under the Tamil Nadu Government Art and Culture Department, holds a Master’s degree in Digital Journalism (2021) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Folklore and Cultural Studies (2023). He is currently pursuing Diplomas in Expressive Arts Therapy and Puppet Therapy. Since 2019, he has been active in street theatre and over the past five years, Poongodi has volunteered at Veethi Viruthu Vizhaa, a folk artist carnival, working closely with rural folk artists, children, and the queer community. He is skilled in traditional folk dances and teaches puppet making, animation, and street theatre in schools and colleges. In 2022, he got trained in Rod Puppetry (Buraku style) and was selected for the Puppet Incubation Lab at the Goethe Institute Delhi by the Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust in 2023. A member of UNIMA India, Poongodi has contributed to various productions, serving as an artist, director, writer, and designer in works such as “Rosapookari” (2022), “Mayiru” (2022), “Ungalin Marakkah” (2023), “Pinavarai” (2023), “Neela Bhoomi” (2023), “In the Shadow of Nakba” (2023), and “Adorable Separation” (2024), most of which address queer life. He has been awarded the MMF-Pari Fellowship Grant 2023-24 to document the lives of rural trans folk artists. Currently, Poongodi is a performing artist with the Fluid Space Theatre Group and a teacher who travels to remote areas to raise awareness about gender and sexuality through his art. He is a strong advocate for “art for all” and uses his work to challenge queerphobia, Islamophobia, fascism, and inequality.

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Aušra Kiudulaitė was born in 1978 in Vilnius, Lithuania. She has a master degree from Vilnius Academy of Arts (VAA) and is now working as a freelance illustrator and runs creative workshops for children as well as students and art professionals. Aušra actively participates in international exhibitions. festivals and book fairs.

In 2016 her first picture book Happiness is a Fox was published which became a national phenomenon and also gained international attention when it was published by Thames and Hudson in the UK. The book received many awards including The Best Book of the Year Award in 2017 in Lithuania, The Most Beautiful Book of the Year by LBBY in 2016.

Aušra has been selected for the LBBY Honour list in 2018 and 2023.

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Evelina Daciūte is an author of books for children, was born in Vilnius in 1975. She debuted in children’s literature in 2014 with the book Teddy Bear Adventures, Lupine Labyrinth which is now a series of titles. In 2015 “The Elephants Went Visiting was published and awarded as the Most Beautiful Book in the Book Art Competition. In 2016 the book received the Book of the Year Award for the Youngest Readers by IBBY Lithuania. The most recognized and awarded book by Evelina Dacie is Happiness is a Fox/ The Fox on the Swing, which was published in 2016 in Lithuania, in 2018 in the UK and USA.