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Photo by Ken Van Sickle |
Rajika Puri, an exponent of Bharatanatyam and Odissi who has performed internationally in solo recitals (including a Command Performance for the President of Mexico), is now known for her innovative explorations of traditional Indian dance and music: Flamenco Natyam, a mosaic of flamenco and Bharatanatyam, danced story telling in which she accompanies herself by singing and chanting the text and songs which she interprets in movement, and Bharatanatyam Variations in which she looks at the ancient temple dance form from a post-modern perspective.
Ms Puri is also an actress. She played ‘goddess Kali‘, ‘Narrator’, and the voice for several puppets in Julie Taymor’s The Transposed Heads (Lincoln Center
Theater), and appeared in the films like Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala and Danny Leiner’s The Great New Wonderful.
Recent productions include Union/Severed, an exploration of two ways of relating to the divine – as lover and as mother – performed to popular western songs sung by Nora York (Asia Society) and traditional Orissi music, and Devi-malika, danced stories about a ‘garland of goddesses’ (Rubin Museum of Art).
Ms Puri is on the Advisory Council of IAAC. |
