Vijay Palaparty

Vijay Palaparty practices and performs both Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi forms of classical dance from South India. He began his training in Kuchipudi in 1992 in Hyderabad with Dr. K. Uma Rama Rao, founder and director of Lasya Priya. His study of Bharatanatyam began in 1994 with Padma Rajagopal at the Nupur Anjali School of Dance in Cleveland. In 1999, Vijay became a student of Sudharani Raghupathy, founder trustee of Shree Bharatalaya in Chennai, when he was a study abroad student with Hamilton, N.Y.-based Colgate University's India Study Group.

He has performed throughout the United States, Canada, India and Australia. This past November, he premiered Alekhya: Spilling Ink in Chennai, a collaboration of poetry, theater and Bharatanatyam, and Samhita: Conversations in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, in Hyderabad. In Spring 2006, Vijay toured Varnam: Myriad Hues of Indian Dance, a Bharatanatyam repertoire, to several U.S. cities. The work premiered at Carnegie Mellon University in 2002. He has also worked with other groups including Pittsburgh-based Srishti Dances of India, where he was involved in education and outreach activities in addition to performing.

In Chennai, Vijay performed at many presenting sabhas in Silappadikaram: The Tale of Puhar, a 2003 collaboration of Colgate University and Shree Bharatalaya. He also performed at the Mysore Palace for the 1999 Vijayadasami celebrations and on several other occasions in Hyderabad. In 1998, Vijay performed at the Tyagaraja Festival in Melbourne, Australia. In Canada, he has performed in Toronto for the Toronto Kalibari. He has traveled coast to coast in the U.S. on several tours as well. A majority of his local work in the last eight years has taken place in Pittsburgh, where he was studying and working through 2006.

Vijay has a B.A. and M.A. in Professional Writing from Carnegie Mellon University and an additional M.A. in Literary and Cultural Studies, also from Carnegie Mellon University. Since March 2007, he has been working as a journalist in Washington, D.C. for a trade association.