From Hybrid Bharatham To Global Stages: The Ongoing Evolution Of Usha Jey

Paris has a way of stripping things down to their essence. In a city saturated with images, performance, and style, what stands out is the intent. That is exactly what comes through in the recent photo series and conversation between choreographer and movement director Usha Jey and Indian photographer Raajadharshini K, a collaboration that feels more like a meeting of philosophies.

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Shot in Paris, the city where she was born and brought up, the images sit at the intersection of movement, and culture. There is no spectacle for spectacle’s sake. Instead, the frames feel lived-in, thoughtful, and deeply personal, mirroring the way Jey approaches her work across dance, fashion, and film.

“I’m Usha Jey. I’m a choreographer and movement director, based in Paris, and I am Tamil,” she says simply, when asked to introduce herself. That clarity carries through everything she does.

Usha Jey rose to global attention through her Hybrid Bharatham video series, which went viral worldwide and reshaped how audiences understand the meeting point of classical Indian dance and contemporary movement. What many people now use as a genre label began as her own way of naming her work.

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“For me, Hybrid Bharatham was originally just the name of a video series — work that balanced hip hop and Bharatanatyam,” she explains. “Often, classical Indian dance gets labelled as ‘Bollywood,’ so I wanted to clearly name it and teach people that this dance form is Bharatanatyam.”

The word ‘hybrid’ was intentional. “It wasn’t meant to replace tradition, it was my way of engaging with it,” she says. Over time, the term has taken on a life far beyond her own work. “For me today, Hybrid Bharatham isn’t just a style. It’s a way of thinking about movement, culture, and the body. It’s about respecting roots while allowing space to evolve and create something new.”

While Bharatanatyam remains central to her identity, hip hop is where her journey began. “Hip hop is actually my foundation. I started when I was 16,” she shares, citing her early collaborations with Off-White and Virgil Abloh in Paris as pivotal moments that allowed her to express that side of her practice.

A shared language behind the camera

That sense of evolution, respect, and intention is what drew Raajadharshini K to photograph her. The two share a long-standing creative rapport, grounded in ethics as much as aesthetics.

For Raaj, cultural representation is non-negotiable. “I don’t see my work as just creating images. It’s deeply tied to my ethics,” she says. “I’m constantly thinking about who gets to be seen, how they’re seen, and whether the images allow people to feel recognised rather than reduced to an aesthetic.”

This alignment is palpable in the photographs. Jey appears unguarded, present, and unmistakably herself. There is movement even in stillness, a sense that the body is mid-thought rather than mid-pose.

“You came from London to Paris to make this photo series with me,” she asks Raaj during the conversation. “Why did you want to do it?”

Raaj’s answer speaks to the heart of the collaboration. “From the very first time we worked together, it was clear we shared similar values in how we approach our craft and the people we collaborate with,” she says. She points to Jey’s insistence on crediting dancers by name, her emphasis on community, and her resistance to trend-chasing. “I want the people I photograph to feel like co-authors, not objects being directed.”

For Jey, that mutual understanding made all the difference. “It didn’t feel like work. It felt like us just being ourselves in Paris,” she says. “This is one of my favourite shoots I’ve ever done because it feels like me, not a version of me.”

Working between worlds

In recent years, she has been spending more time working in India, navigating the shift between representing culture abroad and creating within it. “When you create work connected to culture outside India, you focus a lot on representation,” she reflects. “But in India, so much already exists culturally. The challenge is to create something that even people from our own culture haven’t seen before.”

Her recent projects reflect that range. From choreographing Sid Sriram’s Tamil and Telugu music video SOL, to creating the opening performance for H&M’s 10-year anniversary in India, to collaborating with Rahul Mishra on a saree-led performance, Jey continues to move fluidly across disciplines. Speaking about Mishra, she recalls the intimacy of the process. “Rahul Mishra created a saree specifically for the performance. It was a gold organza saree, and everything about it complemented the choreography.”

There are moments of quiet wonder, too. Meeting A.R. Rahman stands out. “He invited me to his studio in Chennai. We spent hours together,” she says. “What impressed me most was his humility. His music is timeless.”

Movement as vision

What sets Jey apart is how deeply she thinks about how movement is seen. “I always start with the visual concept,” she explains of her creative process. “If it doesn’t make sense visually, I start again. I imagine images first and then I build the choreography.”

That visual instinct makes her particularly attuned to the camera. “If I know something is being filmed, I choreograph with the camera in mind,” she says. Angles, framing, intensity, nothing is accidental.

It is also why fashion feels like a natural playground right now. “There’s a lot of space to experiment with movement and visuals,” she says, describing where her focus is leaning this year.

Alongside this, she is developing her first full-length theatre work, ‘Verottam,’ a 25-minute piece created with her co-choreographer Jonathan. “It asks the question: Do we need human connection to feel alive?” she says, describing the work as a reflection on diaspora, memory, and belonging.

Seeing and being seen

At its core, this shoot is about visibility without simplification. “Sometimes brands just say, ‘We want something colourful,’ as if that defines South Asian culture,” Jey says. “It’s reductive.”

The images created with Raaj resist that impulse. They are quiet, intentional, and grounded in mutual respect. They allow complexity to exist without explanation.

As Raaj puts it, collaboration is about responsibility. “The people in the frame should feel respected, understood, and represented with nuance.”

In Paris, through this series, Usha Jey is exactly that. Seen clearly, moving freely, and grounded in a practice that continues to reshape how culture, movement, and identity are understood today.

All Photographs By: Raajdharshini K

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