New Delhi, Oct. 31 -- Physically abused as a teenager, I wonder sometimes if many of my life's choices have been shaped by how I was-and wasn't-touched. If only the touch of someone else-a parent, sibling, friend, stranger-had been different, could I have been someone other than who I am? I think about these life episodes while conversing with choreographer Shruti Maria Datar. She has been unravelling the complexity of touch, while touring the country with C.Tactile, a 45-minute dance performance that investigates touch as a personal and socio-political act.

The piece took two-and-a-half years to conceptualise and has been shown in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Santiniketan. In Delhi, it is being presented on 2 November at Odd Bird Theatre, after...