Christopher Gurusamy

Christopher Gurusamy is a leading soloist of Bharathanatyam regarded as a trailblazer of his generation. Born and raised in Perth, at 18 he moved to India (2005) to study at the internationally renowned Bharathanatyam conservatorium Kalakshetra (Chennai). Christopher is the only Australian to have graduated the 6 year course holding a First Class postgraduate diploma. He continued to live in India for over a decade continuing his training with Bragha Bessell, and was a principal dancer of Leela Samson’s Spanda Dance Company (2012-2017).

 

He performs annually in India at major festivals including the Madras Music Academy, Krishna Gana Sabha and many other prestigious venues, while also touring as a soloist internationally regularly including USA, UK and Singapore.

 

Amongst his accolades, Christopher was named in ‘Best Dance of 2017’ in the New York Times by critic Alastair Mcaulay; conferred Kalavahini Choreographic Fellowship (2018) by leading dancer Malavika Sarukkai; bestowed an arts development grant from the Australia Council to attend the Akram Khan Classical Intensive (2019) in London; and granted the Narasimhachari Endowment from Narada Gana Sabha (2022).

 

After 18 years of being based in India, Christopher returned to Australia in 2022 where he continues his practice, exploring the intersectionality of his own identity as a mixed race, queer man working with sacred and secular texts, art music and rhythm to create work that straddles both the Indian and Australian arts worlds simultaneously

 

.Since Christopher’s return to Australia in 2022, the local arts sector is leveraging his international repute to help foster a recontextualised place for Indian dance in contemporary Australia. His work Ānanda: Dance of Joy (2024) presented at Eternity Playhouse (Sydney), DanceHouse (Melbourne) and Nita Mukesh Ambani Centre (Mumbai) received critical acclaim including a 4-star review in The Age, and was nominated for the Green Room Awards in the Outstanding Performer category. Christopher was also selected for DanceHouse’s 2024 Independent Choreographers Program, and invited to lecture at Monash University for India Performing Arts Convention 2024. He has continued to perform in India including consecutive performances at the Madras Music Academy

 

Utp recently presented Christopher’s sold out season of new work ‘5 Arrows’ (2025) chronicling lust and longing through dance theatre. Also in 2025, Christopher was commissioned by Creative Australia to create a new work ‘Thee’ based on 20th century Tamil poetry; presented work for ACMI Nights; and performed at the Green Room Awards, and for Out of Bounds co-presented by Lucy Guerin and DanceHouse. With a host of other performances for largely South Asian audiences featuring traditional repertoire, Christopher is widely recognised across the globe for the depth and rigour of his immersive performative practice, and his ability to connect with diverse audiences especially those both familiar and unfamiliar with his chosen dance form.