Usha Jey: Dancer & Designer

 Her hiphop-meets-Bharatanatyam style made her a social media star. Now the French-Tamilian dancer Usha Jey has added a celebrity touch to her art. Performing ener­getically with two other dancers for designer Rahul Mishra’s show at London’s swish Dorchester hotel, she got a special hug from Priyanka Chopra. Chopra was in the audi­ence, wearing a ruby red beaded gown by Mishra.

Playing Survivor

Raashii Khanna can make even the most embarrassing situations look mysterious. And so she saved the misogynistic Telugu film Telusu Kada, where Siddhu Jonnalagadda, a chef, plays her demanding husband who wants a divorce. Her scenes with Srinidhi Shetty, who plays Siddhu’s former partner, could have been cringe- making but Khanna manages to pull them off, trying to make her character less a victim and more a survivor.

 An Indian Gertrude

Sheeba Chaddha has played all kinds of mothers onscreen —posh mom (Badhaai Ho), gaslit mom (Bandish Bandits), and put-upon mom (Mirzapur). But she hasn’t played anything quite like Gertrude, the mom from hell, in Hamlet. In a new film version of Shakespeare’s play, starring Riz Ahmed and directed by Aneil Karia, she plays the enigmatic Gertrude to Ahmed’s Hamlet, to much acclaim. Chaddha is collaborat­ing with Ahmed on a new Prime Video series as well.