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| Panelist Bios |
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PAULA MURRAY COLE
(Theater faculty, trainer; Rasaboxes Workshop)
Paula Murray Cole, MFA, LMT is an assistant professor of acting at Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY). As co-director of education for East Coast Artists (ECA), she developed rasaboxes training methodologies and programs with colleague Michele Minnick based on Richard Schechner's work. She has presented rasaboxes for the International Society for Researchers on Emotion Conference (2004), the Association for Theatre Movement Educators Colloquium (2005), ATHE (2009) and at conferences in Montreal, Turkey and Singapore, among others. She co-authored "The Actor As Athlete of the Emotions: The RasaBoxes Exercise" with Michele Minnick for the book Movement For Actors (Editor: Nicole Potter) and contributed a sidebar article to "Rasaesthetics", by Richard Schechner. www.rasaboxes.org |
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RACHEL COOPER
(Director for Cultural Programs and Performing Arts, Asia Society; Post-performance Q& A)
Rachel Cooper has been at the Asia Society since 1993 and is the Director for Cultural Programs and Performing Arts. She has extensive experience in the presentation of traditional and contemporary Asian performing arts. She directed the Festival of Indonesia In Performance which brought over 300 artists from Indonesia to venues across the United States. She is the co-founder and former director of the San Francisco Balinese Music and Dance company Gamelan Sekar Jaya. She did her graduate and undergraduate work at UCLA in Ethnic Arts and Dance Ethnology respectively.
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UTTARA COORLAWALA
(Co-Curator Erasing Borders, choreographer and writer; Moving Traditions Panel)
Uttara Asha Coorlawala (Ph.D. NYU) has been teaching in dance programs at Barnard College (Columbia University), Alvin Ailey-Fordham University, and at Princeton. She pioneered intercultural dance in India, Europe, Japan and the United States over several tours. She served as a Performing Arts advisor to the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and continues to advise on dance performance and choreographic activities. She co-curates the Erasing Borders Dance Festival, New York City, and served as choreographic mentor (Sangeet Natak-Patadik) in Kolkatta, and Birmingham UK. Awards include the AHRB Fellowship, London, Graduate Dance Research Award, CORD, USA, the Homi Bhabha Fellowship, India and research for the Ford Foundation/Asia Society. |
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PRACHI DALAL
(Festival director, dancer, choreographer; Mathematics of Rhythm Panel)
Prachi trained in kathak under Guru Madhurita Sarang. Choreographic credits include the Washington Revel's musical Roads of the Roma (Washington DC), Shirish Korde's opera Bandit Queen (Boston); Veiled/Unveiled at Engendered Festival (Lincoln Center). Prachi has performed at the All-India Kathak Festival (Delhi and Lucknow), Smithsonian Institution (Washington D.C.), Queens Museum of Art (NY), the White House (Washington DC), among others. A consultant and museum educator, she is passionate about arts management and education, heritage preservation and sustainable development. She has directed the Erasing Borders: Festival of Indian Dance since its inception, and works as a teaching artist with the Rubin Museum of Art. |
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SMRUTI PATEL JANI
(Choreographer, mathematician; Mathematics of Rhythm Panel)
Following the call of her personal dharma and her love for learning, Smruti Patel Jani has sought to synthesize her Indian heritage with western culture in all the spheres of her life. Her zeal for dance has found expression as a choreographer/dancer for 20 years, delving into the unique elements of classical Indian (bharatnatyam/ kuchipudi/ mohiniattam) and contemporary dance. Her passion for teaching and math inspired her to become a mathematics professor at the community college level for 15 years. She and her husband live in Atlanta as she discovers the joys of motherhood with her newborn son, Arjun.
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RAJIKA PURI
(Co-Curator Erasing Borders, dancer-choreographer; Vachika Panel)
Trained in bharatanatyam and odissi, Rajika has given solo recitals throughout the US, Latin America, Europe and India - including a command performance for the President of Mexico. Particularly known for her work with different kinds of music: flamenco, Bach, American Song, and also for a form of danced story-telling in which she accompanies her dancing with songs and chants in Sanskrit, and spoken texts in English, she now conceives, choreographs - and even devises music for - evening length works: Union/Severed (Asia Society, NY), Devi-Malika (Duke on 42nd St.), Conversations with Shiva, & Tapasya (Joyce SoHo, NY). www.rajjikapuri.com
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ANITA RATNAM
(Performer, presenter; Moving Traditions Panel)
Anita Ratnam, one of India's most gifted artists, is an accomplished neo-classical and contemporary dancer-actor. A modernist, passionate about creating from her immediate environment, Ratnam has explored various streams of movement and ritual traditions connected with her initial training in bharatanatyam. In ensemble and solo works that echo her strong Indian/Asian aesthetic, Ratnam uses her personal life experience and the full canvas of a woman's world to paint her original dance-scapes. As a cultural entrepreneur, Ratnam has founded Narthaki.com, an Indian dance portal; revived and restaged kaisiki natakam, a 13th century ritual theatre performance, and co-founded and curated The Other Festival, India's first annual contemporary dance festival. www.anitaratnam.com |
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RICHARD SCHECHNER
(Professor of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University)
Richard Schechner is University Professor and Professor of Performance Studies at NYU. He is editor of TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies and editor of the Enactments book series published in India by Seagull Books. Schechner is the author of many books including Environmental Theater, Between Theater and Anthropology, The End of Humanism, Performance Theory, The Future of Ritual, and Performance Studies-An Introduction. His writings have been translated into many languages including French, Polish, Japanese, Dutch, Czech, Slovenian, Greek, Chinese, Korean, German, Italian, Spanish, Parsi, Hungarian, and Serbo-Croatian. He founded The Performance Group and East Coast Artists with whom he directed many productions. He has also directed plays in Hindi in India, in English in South Africa, and in Mandarin in China. |
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PURNIMA SHAH
(Dancer, scholar; Moving Traditions Panel)
Purnima Shah is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Dance at Duke University. She acquired her Ph.D. in Performance Studies and Ethnography from the Department of Theatre and Drama, University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently producing a dance documentary on the religious traditions of the garba dance of Gujarat and completing a book project on the same. Her essay on "Randala Ritual: Women's Heritage and Identity in Gujarat" is forthcoming. With a dance specialization in kathak and bharatanatyam, she has given performances in India as well as in Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, Mongolia, the USA and the (former) U.S.S.R. |
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REENA SHAH
(Writer, dancer; Vachika Panel)
Reena Shah is a writer and dancer based in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of Movement in Stills: the Life and Dance of Kumudini Lakhia, a biography published by Mapin Ltd in 2005, and is currently working on a collection of short stories and prose poems. Reena began her kathak training with Parul Shah and spent two years on a Fulbright grant studying at the Kadamb Center for Dance and Music in India under the guidance of Padma Bhushan Kumudini Lakhia, where she also developed her biography. She has been a member of the Parul Shah Dance Company for the past seven years.
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SRIDHAR SHANMUGAM
(Dancer, choreographer; Angika Workshop)
Sridhar Shanmugam trained in a prestigious school of dance in Tamil Nadu, India. In 1983, he started working with Chandralekha, the legendary choreographer, and danced in all her productions. He performed in major National and International dance festivals under the banner of the Cultural Center Chennai. Sridhar Shanmugam has toured around the world over the past two decades, working with many of the world's most famous artists. Sharing a stage with Pina Bausch, Suzanna Linke, and countless others, Sridhar has been an international ambassador for the arts. Honors include the Sangeet Natak Akademy Award, Time out Dance Umbrella Award, GIAI Award for Culture and Ecology as part of Chandralekha's group.
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BALA SKANDAN
(Carnatic percussionist; Mathematics of Rhythm Panel)
Bala Skandan is a performer/teacher/composer of Carnatic (South Indian) percussion. He plays the mridangam (double-headed drum), kanjira (frame drum) and konnakkol (vocal percussion). Bala Skandan is based in Manhattan and performs widely in the US. As a percussionist, he has accompanied established international musicians for several years. He also has many large music and dance productions to his credit. He is the lead performer in Akshara, a percussion ensemble based in NY. He is a member of Lotus 5, an Indo-Jazz group based in NY. In 2007/08 he had the distinction of teaching and conducting the first Carnatic student recital at the prestigious Juilliard School of music.
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CHITRA SUNDARAM
(Dancer, choreographer; Moving Traditions Panel)
Chitra Sundaram is recognized as a dance artist of distinction in India, Britain, and in dance circles abroad. Tutored in India by masters of bharatanatyam, she has since explored approaches, vocabularies and devices of other dances and theatres. Together with her diaspora sensitivities, these inform and subtly imprint her work. Her Moham-A Magnificent Obsession received significant attention in the UK, India and North America for its iconoclastic proposition and presentation. Skull, her contemporary austere solo with choreographer Hari Krishnan, toured in the UK and was shown in New York and Chennai. Chitra is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a Trustee of Westminster Arts. |
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ELISE THORON
(Writer, director; Vachika Panel)
As writer, Elise's music theater pieces: Life? or Theater?; Green Violin; Prozak and the Platypus, (CD and graphic novella) are produced in the US and Europe. As director, Elise has developed many new works, most recently County of Kings with spoken word poet, Lemon Andersen at the Public Theater. As Associate Artistic Director, American Place Theater, Elise co-founded a highly successful educational program Literature to Life. For over twenty years, she has created and facilitated cross-cultural exchanges with Russian theater artists. Through an Asian Cultural Council fellowship, Elise embarked on collaboration in Japan with paper artist Kyoko Ibe: Recycling: washi tales, now in development at New York Theatre Workshop.
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