The East West Dance Encounter, 1984, Bombay, consisted of a week of presentations and discussion among selected performers and critics representing a range of styles, forms, and theories of dance and committed to intercultural exchange. In the evenings were public performances. Despite a long history of transformation, Indian dance in the 1980s was known more for adherence to tradition than for innovation. The East West Dance Encounter represented an early effort to acknowledge and celebrate choreographic experimentation. It highlighted projects that contended with the demands of a recently reformed tradition and those that engaged with modernist aesthetics, including expressionism and minimalism alongside postmodern initiatives like parody. This event set the stage for subsequent Dance Encounter events that continued to support modernist work in India.