Indian Dance Showcase
Saturday, October 12, 2024 at 3:00pm
World Music Hall
Free and open to the public
Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff can RSVP on WesNest, but reservations are not required.
Visit www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/navaratri for a full listing of events.
Connecticut-based choreographers Sarada Nori Akella and Rachna Agrawal (pictured) will be joined by Wesleyan students Akhil Joondeph '26 and Tanvi Navile '25 to showcase short performances from a range of different classical dance styles, including North Indian Kathak, South Indian Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam, and Odissi from Eastern India. The performance will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Hari Krishnan, Professor of Dance, Global South Asian Studies, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
PROFILES
Performer, choreographer, educator, and published author Rachna Ramya Agrawal studied Kathak with Pt. Rajendra Gangani and Vidushi Dr. Maya Rao. Agrawal also trained in Choreography at the Natya Institute of Choreography in New Delhi, India. Currently, she is on the teaching faculty at Trinity College in Hartford and is also the Artistic Director of the Sumbhaav School of Kathak Dance. She has published a novel in Hindi, “Digbhramit,” and a book on her dance form, “Kathak: The Dance of Storytellers.” Agrawal is the recipient of the “2020/2021 Distinguished Achievement in Dance Award” from the Connecticut Dance Alliance, and the “Vision Award” from the Charter Oak Cultural Center.
Sarada Nori Akella has been a choreographer, educator and a practitioner of Kuchipudi dance for over 20 years. She is a disciple of Guru Sri Vempati Ravi Shankar and Guru Smt. Maddali Usha Gayathri. Akella is the founder and artistic director of Layavinyasa company that specializes in Kuchipudi dance and Carnatic classical music. Akella has toured nationally and internationally and has been a part of prestigious festivals such as the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. She holds a Masters degree in Arts. Akella is a recipient of the Artists Respond and Artists Fellowship awards from the Connecticut Office of Arts. As the founder of a non-profit she has conducted art education programs, contributed resources to integrate Asian and Asian American Studies for grades K–12, and curated exhibits to feature the historical cultural identity of Indians at Connecticut-based historical societies. Akella’s work has been funded by the New England Foundation for the Arts, Middletown Commission on Arts, and Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, among others.
Akhil Joondeph ’26 has over seventeen years of dance experience, including twelve years of intensive training in Odissi. He has also studied jazz, modern, contemporary, hip hop, improvisation, and more, and his work lies at the intersections of these various disciplines, as well as the intersections of his cultural identities as a queer, multi-ethnic, second generation South Asian American dancer from California. In his work, he draws from themes and aesthetics of both South Asian dance forms and global dance practices, blurring the boundaries of genre while using the body as a storytelling instrument, capable of interrogating and questioning societal institutions, cultural constructs, and the self. His choreography has been featured in the Fresh Meat Festival, FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival, Mandala Makers Festival, and beyond.
Tanvi Navile ’25 was born into a family of dancers and began her formal Bharatanatyam training at age five under her mother, Deepti Mukund Navile, Artistic Director of Natyabhoomi School of Dance in Maryland. Since her Rangapravesha (debut performance) at fourteen, Navile has performed extensively in the U.S. and in India, including at prestigious venues like the Kennedy Center, Strathmore Music Hall, and Tirupati temple. Her repertoire includes several solo performances and thematic productions with senior gurus such as Guru Dr. Lalita Srinivasan, Guru N. Srikanth Natarajan, and Kasi Aysola. With a deep passion for Bharatanatyam, Navile is excited to share her art with you all on the Wesleyan stage.
This event is part of the 48th annual Navaratri Festival at Wesleyan.