Sarah Morelli

Sarah Morelli is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music. She holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Harvard University (2007) and a BA in Music and Russian from Dickinson College (1995). Her work bridges scholarship and performance, focusing on Indian classical dance (kathak), diaspora communities, and embodied cultural practices. She is co-editor of *Music and Dance as Everyday South Asia* (Oxford University Press, 2024) and author of *A Guru’s Journey: Pandit Chitresh Das and Indian Classical Dance in Diaspora* (2019).

Professional affiliations include the Society for Asian Music and the Society for Ethnomusicology. As a performer, she is a co-founder of the Leela Dance Collective and founder of Leela Denver, a nonprofit teaching kathak in Colorado. Her research explores processes of cultural change in artistic diasporas, gendered performance practices, and pedagogical methodologies in South Asian music and dance.