RAJIKA PURI in DEVI-MALIKA  January 17-20, 2008
  
ARTISTIC TEAM
  

	RAJIKA PURI (dancer, actor, singer, choreographer) Trained in both Bharatanatyam and Odissi, Rajika has performed solo recitals all over the US, Europe, Latin America and India. Familiarity with western classical music, ballet, modern dance and flamenco has led her to cross-cultural collaboration: Flamenco Natyam (Works & Process at the Guggenheim, India tour), Bach-Bharatanatyam Variations, and Another Country with singer Nora York. Active in western theater, Rajika has worked with Julie Taymor (The Transposed Heads-Lincoln Center Theater), Joanne Akalaitis (Cymbeline-NY Shakespeare Festival), Liviu Ciulei (The Bacchae-Guthrie Theater), Carey Perloff (Phaedra Britannica-Classic Stage Company) and Ron Daniels (Macbeth-Theatre for a New Audience), among others. In film she has been directed by Mira Nair Mississippi Masala), Norman Renee (Longtime Companion) and Danny Leiner (Great New Wonderful). www.rajikapuri.com
	YUVAL SHARON (director) Recent directorial work includes a chamber production of Aida, The Magic Flute for Families at San Francisco Opera,a Shakespeare mash-up entitled Celebrate Good Times (Macbeth), and the American premiere of Falk Richter’s God is a DJ. His collaboration with Rajika Puri includes performances at the Joyce SoHo, Asia Society, and the Rubin Museum of Art. Yuval is also Project Director for New York City Opera’s VOX, an annual workshop of new American compositions, which performs at New York University’s Skirball Center. Yuval has also worked with the Komische Oper Berlin, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berkeley Opera, Deitch Projects, and is co-founder of the New York-based ensemble Theater Faction. www.yuvalsharon.com
	ERIC FRASER (bansuri- Indian bamboo flute) is a disciple of Pandit Gopal Roy of Kolkata, one of the few living exponents of the Padmabhushan Pannalal Ghosh and Pandit Gour Goswami lineage, and spends several months a year in Kolkata pursuing his love of the bamboo flute.  In America, he is under the guidance of Steve Gorn, a virtuoso of the same lineage. Eric regularly performs Indian classical music on bamboo flute in India and the USA, and is frequent accompanist for dance and theatre.  He is involved in the ground-breaking Latin-Indian fusion project The Tollywood Allstars, and contributes with his bansuri to music ranging from Hip Hop to children’s music.  Eric is also a music therapist (MA MT), freelance teaching artist, and singer/songwriter.
	SHANE SHANAHAN (percussion) has studied drumming traditions from all over the world and combined them with his training in classical Western music, jazz, and rock to create a unique style. Since January 2001, he tours the world with Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble. A member of frame-drum master Glen Velez’s Handance ensemble, Shane has also performed with jazz legend Sonny Fortune, African multi-instrumentalist Foday Musa Suso, master of Persian music Kayhan Kalhor, Bang on a Can All-Star Robert Black, and composer Philip Glass, among others. He works with Indonesian gamelans, Caribbean Steel Drum bands, throat singing choirs, free improvisation groups, contemporary music ensembles, orchestras, folk singers, and songwriters. Shane has presented workshops – and studied – in India, New Zealand, Turkey, China, the US and Canada. www.shaneshanahan.com
	BARRY STEELE (light design, production manager) For two decades, Barry Steele has lit opera, dance, and music productions in the US and abroad including San Francisco Opera Center, Bang on a Can, Nantes Opera, and Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company. New operas such as Buoso's Ghost, Casanova, and rarely performed operas such as Zaide, and La Voix Humaine, complement his list of standard opera repertory. His video projected environments are in demand for new opera productions from Lost Highway to Die Zauberflote. Since 1989, Mr. Steele has lit music ensembles in New York, Berlin, Amsterdam and Vienna, and a range of dance groups including Paco Peña’s Flamenco Theater and Battery Dance Company, where (as with New Generation Tango Dance Company) he is resident light designer and supervisor of productions,  international and domestic.
	NIRALI SHASTRI (assistant choreographer) has a BA in Bharatnatyam from Gujarat, India. In Toronto she taught at Nrityakala, Canadian Academy of Indian Dance, and danced with Menaka Thakkar Dance Company. Since moving to New York in 2004, she has performed at the United Nations and Queens Museum of Art, and is performer-choreographer with World Dance Theatre. She also teaches residencies at city schools, while studying ballet and tap as part of a work-study program at Steps on Broadway. Nirali danced in Rajika Puri & Dancer’s Conversations with Shiva: Bharatanatyam Unwrapped at Joyce SoHo, New York, for which she co-choreographed with Rajika the duet Anga.