Zuleikha Chaudhuri

Zuleikha Chaudhari is a theatre director and lighting designer based in New Delhi and Mumbai, India. She is also a Visiting Faculty (Scene Work) at The Dramatic Art and Design Academy, New Delhi.

She was awarded the Sangeet Natak Academy, YUVA PURUSKAR in 2007 and Charles Wallace India Trust Award, 2001/2002.

Education and early life Chaudhari majored in Theatre Directing and Light Design from Bennington College in Vermont, USA in 1995. She is the granddaughter of Ebrahim Alkazi, eminent Indian theatre director and daughter of Amal Allana, theatre director and former Chairperson of National School of Drama, New Delhi. She notes about her prominent lineage, "Contrary to popular belief I did not grow up with rehearsals all around me. As children, we never watched that much theatre. Maybe, because we didn't show that much interest. I arrived at it on my own." The production opened in Khoj Studios, New Delhi, in 2006 and was presented again in Seoul Performing Arts Festival, Seoul, 2007.

She continued this style of site-specific installation and performance art with her next project, 'On Seeing', based on Haruki Murakami's short story, On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning, presented in 2008 at Khoj Studios, New Delhi and different theatre festivals and at Essl Museum, Vienna in 2010. Set in three rooms at Khoj Studios, New Delhi, this performance required the audience to move with the actors.

Her latest project, 'Seen at Secunderabad', in collaboration with Raqs Media Collective, was a multi-media performance that attempted to deconstruct a photograph taken by colonial war photographer Felice Beato in 1857. The project premiered in Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels in 2011.

Personal life Chaudhuri was previously married to Manish Choudhary, an actor. During marriage they collaborated on many of her productions, such as On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning and Arabian Nights. Their former group, called Performers at Work, started in 1997 and primarily worked on translating text into visuals. The group has produced works such as Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, Virginia Woolf's Orlando and their very own, The Mahabharata Project.