Navtej Johar

Navtej Singh Johar is a dancer-choreographer, somatic practitioner, scholar and a social activist. His work—within all fields of his varied interests—remains consistently body-centric. It twines practice with critical theory and social action, traverses freely between the traditional and the contemporary, and rigorously engages both the philosophical and the sociological discourses of the body. Trained in Bharatanatyam at Kalakshetra, and in yoga at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, Chennai, India, he is the founder-director of Studio Abhyas, a space devoted equally to theory and practice, at New Delhi. Over years of practice, Johar has devised two pedagogical methods: BARPS, that sequentially involves bracing, aligning, rotating of joints, poising of breath/attention, leading to spacious stretching in asana; and Abhyas Somatics that is inspired by the sensory aftereffects of rasa (resonance) and sukha (pleasurable repose) that are integral to Indian poetics and yoga respectively. Johar teaches internationally including online.