Subhajit Khush Das opens up on being a male dancer in India
He is delicately fluid, yet intensely powerful, but his battles to learn the art form were more than a challenge. Primarily a Bharatanatyam dancer, Subhajit Khush Das is one of the few male artistes performing and exploring the Uday Shankar dance form. From travelling to the University of IOWA, to helping an engineering professor train and test artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to recognising and classifying changing features through Bharatanatyam; from choreographing Anant and Radhika Ambani’s hastakshar ceremony in Jamnagar to being the first dancer to perform Uday Shankar-style dance at the Battery Dance Festival 2025; to teaching Indian dance at Point Park university in the US in New York, life has come a full circle for him.
Subhajit now makes sure his students don’t face the ordeals he had to go through. He has a troupe in Bandel called Subhangik, and he makes sure that everybody earns at least a little through dance so that they need not think of giving up on the art.
Why did you think of opening a school in Bandel and not Kolkata?
I always wanted to open a school, if ever, in Bandel. I noticed how people could never move out of the comfort of their neighbourhood into bigger institutions. I am lucky that my parents got me admitted to Mamata Shankar’s institute, Udayan, and six months later to Anita Mullick to learn Bharatanatyam. The travel time was five hours, three to four days a week, but now students don’t want to put in that much effort. So I tried to make things easier by setting up Subhangik in Bandel.
How is the troupe model working for Subhangik?
Subhangik is not an institute per se. We take classes for our outstation students, coming all the way from Burdwan, Durgapur, Asansol, Katwa, and Bankura, only for two days. The rest of the week is for our practice, choreography, or gigs. And it’s not just me who is teaching; my senior students are equally involved too. And the interesting part is we teach and learn everything, from choosing f abrics to designing clothes to even editing music.
Is the scenario any better for male classical dancers today?
Honestly, there still is a societal taboo that men will become effeminate if they dance—that is the mentality. But I would say it is the other way round. Because that person is graceful, he chooses to dance. Touchwood, I have never been bullied n school or college, and even during times when I had, I could speak up for myself. But trust me, nothing has changed. I have seen my friends and colleagues going through these harrowing experiences almost every day.
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