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IAAC Winter Mela
Nayikas
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BIOS
Myna
Mukherjee is the Artistic Director,
teacher and choreographer
for Nayikas. Her initial dance training was in the Bharatanatyam
and Kathak which she started at the age of 10. She then trained
in Odissi for over 6 years in India at the Bharatiya Kala Kendra
under Guru Mayadhar Raut and Guru Dibankar Kuntia. In New York,
she trained with Guru Durga Charan Ranbir in the Lt. Deba Prasad
Das style. She has performed Odissi for several years both across
India and the US. Her most recent performances have been with Nayikas
at the MET in Soho, and at Yale University where she was invited
to do a lecture demonstration and perform Odissi.
Before Nayikas, Myna has been the Artistic
Director for Mosaic, the south asian festival of dance at the
Lincoln Center in association with the World Music Institute,
and has produced and curated several South Asian events and festivals
in New York including Diasporadics 2000 - the South Asian arts
and activism festival that will be celebrating its fourth year
this year, Parda - the performance showcase that celebrated its
second year at the Public Theater last year.
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She has also choreographed for the Western
stage for Paul Knox's Kalighat. She was featured in Centered Margins,
a theater festival produced by Chashama and Circle East. Her other
performances include those for the Tides Foundation - India Fund
at the New York Society for Ethical Culture at Central Park West,
and the New York Ramayana for World Music Institute and Lotus
Fine Arts. Myna holds a masters degree in information systems
and finance from Carnegie Mellon University and before Nayikas
was a management consultant by profession.
She feels blessed, inspired and humbled
everyday by Odissi and just dance in general. |
| Sunonda Samaddar
has studied classical Indian dance for over 20 years with Nritya
Sudha Chandra Sekhar in Detroit, MI. She has been a member of the
Vidyanjali dance troupe and has performed across North America and
Canada in productions that have been featured in the Detroit Opera
House, African American Museum, Wayne State University, Georgetown,
Troy Bharatiya Temple and other prestigious venues. She is also
the co-founder of Convergence, a creative collective for women of
color performing works that intertwine spoken word, movement and
theater. She began training in Odissi in the Deba Prasad Das style
with Guru Durga Charan Ranbir and Bani Ray. Currently she is training
in the Nayikas style with Myna Mukherjee.
"I feel blessed to contribute to the
efforts of Nayikas. As a diasporadic and as a woman, Nayikas is
a sacred space that mediates life and change through devotion
and dedication. Under Myna's direction, I have found a fresh appeal
toward the world of classical dance, a sensitivity to the plurality
of interpretation and a new esteem for the dancer."
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