Patruni Sastry
Patruni Sastry, popularly known as Patruni Chidananda Sastry or Suffocated art Specimen is a Expressionist dancer, performance artist, visual artist, model and drag queen. Biography Sastry started dancing at the age of 5. He was inspired by Ramya Krishnan from Padayappa in his initial days. Later from the Expressionist movement. He later learned Kuchipudi, Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Butoh, Contemporary dance. Sastry was inspired from Daniel Lismore, Austin Young and started performing Tranimal drag. Sastry performed at Hyderabad Literature festival, Namma Pride, The Lalit Ashok, Lamakaan. Shilparamam, and in many other public spaces. He founded Dragvanti and also acted in a short film 'Polar Night' which is based on the Polar Night effect by Rakesh Asileti. In 2021, Sastry was the convener for India's first Drag Conference. Sastry uses dance to talk about social topics such as sex education, queer activism and women empowerment. Performance style Patruni self termed the dance as "Indian Expressionism", Inspired from Expressionist Dance with indian classical dance vocabulary. Explaining about the art from Patruni Said "This woman is so raged that she got rejected, she screams out loud and dances. So for the very first time as a kid, when I saw this, I thought if you have to show your anger, you have to dance…And since then, I kind of picked [it] up. Whenever my mom was not giving me a chocolate or whenever I was not getting what I wanted, I used to scream aloud and dance, That was, how it became a kind of an expression.” Patruni also blends the idea of performance art in every presentation. His performance are majorly centered towards body and how its centered with society, agency, and politics. Talking about performance art Patruni says "“I always [saw] my body as a kind of canvas,” Sastry says. “Literally using the body as a part of a movement—a movement is a canvas…When I pose a certain way or when I’m just posing in a different way—escalating my body into a certain form—it automatically creates a canvas. It automatically creates an art.” Patruni's Style of Drag is an Indian inspiration of Tranimal Drag. Patruni explains tranimal drag as "I always [saw] my body as a kind of canvas,” Sastry says. "But, unlike traditional drag, in which performers are praised for their elegance and beauty, I was attracted to tranimal style–also called “drag terrorism”. Tranimal drag is the drag of poor, available drag queens. It does not throw money on clothes and cosmetics, and works on only one belief: “this will do”. Tranimal drag performers make outfits themselves with available trash. They look vigorous, and they momentarily erase beauty and gender norms. When I perform tranimal I am liberated, I become the drag queen who doesn’t wear heels, but performs bare-footed for the less privileged community that I try to remind myself of." Activism In 2018, a Telugu YouTube channel created more than a couple of videos which were homophobic, transphobic and gender phobic, to which Patruni confronted with a petition to take