When the traditional (dance) and the modern (university) intersect within the Liberal Arts, the pedagogical dynamics produced opens possible pathways to approach decolonization as an ongoing praxical pedagogical process. This un-archival unruly lived experience of decolonization proposes a possibility of evoking Indian pasts against the misuses of the present. Arguing for an un-archival response which mediates the insertion of traditional oral mnemocultres into academia, enables knowledge production through heterogeneous modes of practice sustained by an embodied relation with generativity. Examining the relationship between the curriculum, the teacher and the student created in this context, this paper theorizes decolonization as an epistemological move towards understanding, living and moving beyond the colonial translation. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.