| Panelists | |||
Dulam Satyanarayana Dulam Satyanarayana is an award winning young documentary filmmaker from India. At age 23, he set out to the remote islands of Sunder bans for his debut short documentary "Moushuni" which focuses on a village which lacked electricity until 2001, which now uses solar power to generate power for village community. Later he developed "Dreadful Fate", an expose about ground water contamination in Nalgonda area of Andhra Pradesh state in India. His powerful work depicted politicians who would claim to provide citizens with clean drinking water in exchange for votes, but failed to fulfill their promises for 4 decades. He has been awarded the CCIP grant for 2011-12 by U.S.Department of State. Funds from his music video ‘My Afghanistan’ are going towards the development of Afghan Women. We are honored that Dulam will be presenting excerpts from his newest documentary on Kuchipudi dance legend, Padmasri Vedantam Satyanarayana Sarma and will be on hand to discuss it. |
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| Guru Rachna Sarang | |||
 Guru Rachna Sarang, is the choreographer, founder and artistic director of Rachna Sarang Academy of Performing Arts, RSAPA. She has been trained in Kathak by Pandit Sundarprashad, Pandit Lachhu Maharaj and the renowned Padma Vibhushan Pandit Birju Maharaj. She also studied Bharatnatyam under Chandrashekar Pillai and Kalyansundaram Pillai of Raja Rajeshwari in Mumbai. Rachna Sarang, working continuously over the last 40 years, trained over 200 students. She has presented at venues in New York such as Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Town Hall and American Museum of Natural History. She performed for the World Music Institute at Symphony Space, NY along with her troupe and her sister, the late Madhurita Sarang. |
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| Jonathan Hollander | |||
 Jonathan Hollander is one of the outstanding choreographers of his generation and has taken a leadership role in international cultural exchange and social activism. He founded Battery Dance Company in lower Manhattan in 1976 and has choreographed over 75 works that have been presented by the Company in more than 60 countries. He has established arts education residencies in New York City public schools; and has served in Fulbright positions in India and Malaysia. He has received leadership awards in the U.S., Germany and Poland and is a frequent keynote speaker for the State Department, Aspen Institute, Asia Pacific International Dance Conference and others. He is co-founder of the Indo-American Arts Council and a founding member of Lower Manhattan Arts League. |
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| Justin McCarthy | |||
Justin McCarthy, born and brought up in East Grand Rapids, Michigan is a musician and dancer. He plays the piano and the harpsichord for solo recitals, and has worked with many vocalists and instrumentalists and duo recitals. As a dancer he was trained by Subbaraya Pillai, a leading Guru of the Pandanallur style of Bharatanatyam at Chennai and continued under Leela Samson for ten years before beginning to teach it. He also learnt Tamil and Sanskrit languages, and Carnatic music vocal. Currently Justin McCarthy lives in New Delhi where he has headed the Bharatanatyam division of Shriram Bhartiya Kala Kendra, Delhi for 22 years. His original choreography includes pieces following the framework of the traditional repertoire, dance-dramas based on ancient Tamil and Sanskrit texts, and solo and ensemble works utilizing the movement vocabulary of Bharatanatyam but accompanied by various types of music from around the world. |
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| Mandakini Trivedi | |||
 Mandakini Trivedi is a unique dance personality whose quest for Truth through Art has taken her to frontiers beyond the Form. An accomplished performer, teacher and choreographer in the style of Mohiniyattam, her chief work is in the understanding, teaching and spreading the art of Indian Dance as a complete Yoga rooted in subtle yogic principles. Mandakini owes this vision entirely to her spiritual mentor Swami Shri Harish Madhukar.As the Creative Head of the Nateshvari Dance Gurkul she is working towards training young dancers to perform with a deep awareness of the yoga of Indian dance and the awareness that Indian dance is a means of self evolution. To further spread this message, she conducts residential cultural awareness programs and dance awareness programs for allied disciplines like Design, Architecture, Film & Animation deconstructing classical Indian Dance to reveal its innate yogic qualities.She is the author of 3 books on Indian Dance – The Yoga Of Indian Dance, Sutras on Dance, Nepathya – Behind The Curtain. |
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| Parijat Desai | |||
 Parijat Desai is a Brooklyn-based choreographer/dancer, and artistic director of Parijat Desai Dance Company. She creates and performs a kinetic blend of Western contemporary dance, bharata natyam and other forms. The New York Times called her work “fresh ... bold” and a “seamless blending of the new and old.” PDDC has been presented by venues including Danspace Project, La Mama ETC, and Asia Society (NY); Skirball Cultural Center (LA); ODC Theater (SF); Northwestern University (Chicago); The Dance Centre (Vancouver, BC); and National Centre for the Performing Arts (Mumbai, India). In 2013, Desai spearheaded a participatory movement process called Freedom. Safety. NOW. following the Dec '12 Delhi gang-rape, in collaboration with the South Asian Women's Creative Collective/NYC. From 2009-2012, Desai was an artist in residence at Tribeca Performing Arts Center; in 2011, PDDC completed a six-city tour of India, and Desai was invited to the White House Diwali celebration. This Fall, Desai will be a guest artist teaching at Columbia College/Chicago. She will also be a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar based in India October 2013–June 2014, and will teach contemporary dance at Darpana Academy/Ahmedabad and Gati Forum/Delhi. parijatdesai.org |
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| Preeti Vasudevan | |||
 Award-winning choreographer and performer, Preeti Vasudevan is a leading exponent of classical Indian dance-theater Bharatanatyam creating new provocative contemporary theater. Original works performed by her performing arts collaborative Thresh, have earned international acclaim for their fresh juxtaposition of traditional dance-theater forms from her native India with modern theories of movement and expression. (www.threshdance.org). Preeti’s ground-breaking educational website, Dancing for the Gods (www.dancingforthegods.org) has been developed to help teachers in the US build a cultural bridge through creative Indian dance. Preeti has a Bachelor's in Psychology and a Master's in Dance Studies from Laban Centre London specializing in choreography and movement analysis. |
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| Parul Shah | |||
 Parul Shah is an internationally acclaimed Kathak dancer/ choreographer whose work is expanding the classical medium beyond cultural boundaries. Behind Shah’s work is decades of rigorous Kathak training under the world-renowned guru and choreographer, Padmashree Kumudini Lakhia. One of her top students, Parul has internalized Ms. Lakia’s vision and focused on the importance of revealing Kathak’s soulfullness and possibilities. Her work includes traditional solo pieces and contemporary group choreographies. Shah’s New York studio is home to the parul shah dance company and her training facility. She has presented solo and group works at major venues around the world, including City Center’s first Fall for Dance Festival in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, Jacobs Pillow in M.A and at the Japan Forum Foundation in Japan. |
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| The Indo-American Arts Council is a 501 ©3 not-for-profit secular arts organization passionately dedicated to promoting, showcasing and building an awareness of artists of Indian origin in the performing arts, visual arts, literary arts and folk arts. For information please visit | |||