Deepsikha is a costume designer and costume historian teaching at Hunter College CUNY. Here she enjoys teaching a diverse student body helping them visualize play scripts and ideas into living, breathing characters.She also helps students learn to sew, make patterns, make masks, run wardrobe and create their own work. She helps students gain an understanding of performance traditions from Asia, especially India their visual aspects in textiles, crafts, masks and makeup. At Hunter College she teaches courses in Introduction to Theatre, Costume Design, Costume Crafts, Costume Technology and Stage Makeup. Here she was awarded Outstanding Undergraduate Student Research Mentor in 2015. In 2020, several of her peer-reviewed articles for prestigious US and UK scholarly journals are forthcoming.She will be conducting ethnographic research in India for Seraikella Chhau, a masked dance form with a PSC CUNY grant. Her conference paper on Bollywood costumes will be presented in Leiden, Netherlands, in October. In 2021 she will be conducting research on mask making and use of Mahakali Pyakhan of Nepal with a PSC CUNY grant and a DSRG grant from CUNY Graduate Center. In 2019 Deeps published peer-reviewed articles for Dress (Taylor and Francis) and Asian Theatre Journal. She published a book review in Fashion Theory (Taylor and Francis). She conducted ethnographic research on mask making in Assam, India. Deeps was awarded the Best Costume Design Award at United Solo in 2017 for her designs for Hide Your Fires. See more http://unitedsolo.org/us/the-2017-united-solo-awards-have-been-announced/ Deepsikha was awarded the Best Costume Design Award in 2014 by United Solo for the production of artist Yokko's Butoh Medea Bio Deeps grew up in India spending her growing years observing traditional Indian textiles and crafts around her. She received her Bachelors degree in fashion design from the reputed National Institute of Fashion Technology where she received a letter of special appreciation for her thesis collection on adapted clothing for children with cerebral palsy. She also received a Bachelors of Science in Psychology from University of Madras. She worked in the global manufacturing industry where she worked in the sampling department overseeing knitwear clothing- coordinating manufacturing from samples to bulk orders in factories in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. In 2003 she moved to the US to receive her MFA in costume design from Florida State University. Over the years she has worked at several theatres and operas across the US including Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Utah Shakespearean Festival among others. She has taught at SUNY Albany and is now a tenured lecturer at Hunter College CUNY. In recent years she has focused on studying and documenting costumes from Asia, especially masks and costumes in Indian theatre, dance and films. She has presented on these topics at several international venues including USITT and the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. Currently she is pursuing her PhD at CUNY Graduate Center. http://rubinmuseum.org/events/event/surviving-chau-06-24-2015 |
____________________________________________________________ Masks created by students at SUNY Albany in Costume Crafts class.
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