Celebrating Indian Dance in America

In celebration of the history and scope of Indian dance in America, From the Horse’s Mouth dedicated a theater/dance performance event to this storied art form, including its early connections to Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, Jack Cole, and the fascinating early Indian dancers in America Balasaraswati, Ragini Devi, Indrani, and many more. Live music was be included in this colorful tribute, curated by Rajika Puri, doyenne of Indian Dance in NYC.

The weekend celebration included four performances. Over 25 dancers, musicians, historians and choreographers of Indian dance participated, ranging from pioneers to the current generation of dancers, exploring a range of Indian dance forms.

The production also included a special event, A Century of Indian Dance In America 1906-2017 with Rajika Puri and fellow participants.  This included an overview with photo presentations of the pioneers since 1906 as also of the myriad forms of Indian dance introduced to the United States, followed by demonstrations of lesser known forms of Indian Dance like Sattriya (Assam) dance, Mohiniyattam (Kerala), and Gujarati folk dance. PLUS a short look at Bollywood dance.

Rare film footage, videos and multimedia enhanced this edition of From the Horse’s Mouth and its unique blending of movement and storytelling.

Cast:  Prerona Bhuyan, Madhusmita Bora, Kamala Cesar, Uttara Coorlawala, Joe Daly, Parijat Desai, Angelina Haque, Jonathan Hollander, Mohip Joarder, Jeeno Joseph, Baishali Kanjilal, Aniruddha Knight, Hari Krishnan, Julia Kulakova, Aishwarya Madhav, Roopa Mahadevan, Minal Mehta, Sruthi Mohan, Indra Nila, Rajika Puri, Shobana Raghavan, Sukanya Rahman, Anita Ratnam, Donia Salem, Sophia Salingaros, Bijayini Satpathy, Surupa Sen, Reena Shah, Prashant Shah, Rohan Sheth , Kuldeep Singh Siddhu, Sonali Skandan, Anjna Swaminathan, Anand Vemuri, Vija Vetra, Jin Won, Sridhar

ABOUT RAJIKA PURI: Trained at an early age in Bharatanatyam, Rajika’s main guru was Sikkil Ramaswamy Pillai. Later, she studied Odissi with the late Guru Srinath Rauth and Guru Durga Charan Ranbir from the Guru Deba Prasad Das Gurukul, of which she is a senior member.

After several years of performing dance internationally (and in India), including a command performance for the President of Mexico, she began a career as actor playing the “Narrator /Kali/voice of several puppets’ in a Lincoln Center Theater production directed by Julie Taymor (of‘Lion King on Broadway’ fame), with music by Academy Award winner, Elliot Goldenthal.

Rajika soon started to incorporate both speaking and singing in her own danced works, and developed a form of Danced Storytelling in which she embellishes her dancing with songs and narrations in English. In 2005 she did her first solo show of what she calls “Sutradhari Natyam”, a form for which she is now best known.