Article - Seeing the world through a Bharatanatyam body - Samyuktha Gopi Raj

Reflections from The Buckley School's World Dance Workshop and Flip the Script

At The Buckley School, Sherman Oaks, CA, dance education extends beyond learning choreography. It encourages students to explore movement as culture, storytelling, and identity. During the Fall 2025 semester of World Dance, culminating in the October 2025 World Dance Workshop, and later through participation in the April 2026 spring dance concert in Flip the Script, I began to understand how deeply my Bharatanatyam training shaped the way I approached unfamiliar dance forms. Rather than feeling separate from my classical background, each experience reinforced how Bharatanatyam provides a foundation that allows a dancer to move thoughtfully across traditions. 

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Trip down Odissi's memory lane in Orissa Dance Academy's Subarnima - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Celebrations marking fifty years of an art Institution, can take on many hues. Apart from marking a milestone, it can be a time for stock taking, for renewing pledges and also reveling in still retaining a place in a fast-moving world with a penchant for splashes of brilliance rather than longevity. What one saw in Subarnima of Orissa Dance Academy, an institution with a hyper active calendar of events, established in 1975 by the enterprising Guru, late Gangadhar Pradhan and now managed by his top disciple Aruna Mohanty, was a thoughtfully designed umbrella of items, encapsulating a salutation to the artistry, of all the great Gurus of Odissi - but for whose Herculean efforts, present day Odissi could not have boasted of such a large presence in the prevailing dance scenario of India. All credit to Aruna Mohanty, Creative Director cum Secretary of Orissa Dance Academy, who by laying stress on the contribution of the entire family of teachers, has subsumed the invariable contradictions existing between and amongst different Paramparas. By this one act of unifying the entire Odissi brigade with so much grace, the three day Subarnima event (June 22 to 24, 2026 at Rabindra Mandap, Bhubaneswar), acquired a special texture of togetherness and bonhomie.

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Article - Embracing motherhood - Sree Veena Mani

Most of us here have embraced motherhood. We know what it feels like to not wear our bells for almost a year - whether it is for the first baby or the second. Looking back at both my pregnancies, there is one thing I can say with certainty: it may be a pause from being on stage, but it is never a pause from dance itself.

Through both my pregnancies, I continued to grow as an artiste. I focused on understanding the theoretical aspects of Nritya, exploring them in depth with my guru, and strengthening my foundation as a practitioner. One of those explorations was even featured on this website.

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Anita says...July 2026

 I write this month's thoughts from the cool of the mountains. Watching the mist shifting shapes and sipping a cup of Nilgiris tea. Taking long walks in silence and reading. Writing a script for a new work and recalibrating for the months ahead.

It is that time of the year when sporting events abound. Amidst the summer outdoor dance and music festivals, my eyes turn to tennis (what else!) and the surprise that unfolded on the clay courts of Paris.

Even though the sport has moved onto the Wimbledon grass, I want to bring your attention to a surprising event that took place just before the women's and the men's singles final matches.

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Interview - Bringing Rasa to the Digital Stage: A conversation with Aravinth Kumarasamy - Dr. Siri Rama

With so much culture now experienced through screens, can the deep emotional connection of Indian classical dance - the Rasa experience - be felt online? Aravinth Kumarasamy, founder of Avai.Video, a streaming platform for Indian dance and arts, believes it can. 

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Obit / Tribute - Pratap Pawar (1942-2026)- Ashish Mohan Khokar

In the death of guru Pratap Pawar (20 May 1942 – 25 June 2026), a lifetime Kathak trotter came to an end.  A generous man but democratic personality, he was the FIRST ganda bandh (formally accepted student with a red thread on wrist tying ceremony) shishya of Pt. guru Birju Maharaj in 1970.

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Double Bill Summer Dance Festival at IIC - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

IIC's Summer Festival, for its dance component on the second day (June 12), attracting a fair-sized audience, could not have envisaged a more rewarding recital than that of Sourav Mohanty - a rare male Odissi talent, whose evocative dance effloresced in both stillness and movement. A product of training under Durga Charan Ranbir and presently under Rahul Acharya, both hailing from the Debaprasad gharana of Odissi, Sourav's dance with its impeccable lines, could be a reference point for both delicate artistry and aesthetic sensibility in Odissi...

The next half of the program featured Bharatanatyam dancer Sandhya Easwar, this year's winner of the Spirit of Youth Series in Chennai. Trained at Chennai's Kalakshetra, followed by a spell under Roja Kannan with abhinaya lessons under Bragha Bessel, the dancer is presently pursuing her training under the Dhananjayans....

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