Event Details

An online dance outreach program for children aimed at building exposure towards the different dance forms through specially curated sessions covering various topics related to Indian folk and classical dance.

Mohiniattam & Odissi Online Lecture Demonstration by Mythili Anoop and Dhara Gandhi
Schools: Barisha Purba Pura High School, Kolkata & Alipore Takshal Boys School, Kolkata

Telecast live on NCPA YouTube Page

Session is supported by Godrej Agrovet

Mythili Anoop, started training at a young age under Kalamandalam Kshemavathy, later at Nalanda (Mumbai) and in Shrutilaya (Mumbai) founded by Sunanda Nair. Her primary guru and greatest influence is Smt Gopika Varma with whom she has had a long association. She has also trained for brief periods under Kalamandalam Leelamma and Kalamandalam Radhika. She has been teaching Mohiniyattam at ‘Dasyam’ at Bangalore, an institute founded and directed by Gopika Varma.

Mythili Anoop has given several performances with her guru’s troupe and in solo at venues such as Music Academy, Madras, Doha Cinemas, Qatar, Andhra Dance and Music Festival, Vishakapatnam, Konark Festival, IDA Programmes, Bangalore, Navaneetham Monsoon fest, Regional Theatre, Thrissur, Vasantholsavam, Chennai, NIAS (IISc Campus), Thanjavur Amma Veedu, Trivandrum. Her performances have been reviewed positively by renowned critics such as G S Paul and Dr Suryaprasad.

Mythili Anoop has also consistently topped in academics since school days, and was a university topper for Graduation. Her academic abilities were fortified and tested at the Humanities and Social Sciences department of IIT Bombay from where she completed her doctoral studies under the scholar-musician Prof. Milind Malshe. She combined her scholarly talent and passion for dance in her thesis: ‘The Performative Semiotics of Mohiniyattam’, a non-traditionalist, critical and insightful study of the dance for which she received a research fellowship from the UGC.

Dhara Gandhi
An Extremely versatile, graceful and elegant Odissi dancer, teacher , choreographer and linguist with a double Masters in English and French Literature from Mumbai University, she’s also been the recipient of various prestigious titles including the National Award for Classical Dance ‘Shringarmani’ and Swar Sadhana Award in Dance & has also been a judge of the national level dance competitions organised by many prestigious classical dance institutions in Mumbai.

She is also a certified teacher of Odissi from the Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Maha Vidyalaya & has been asked to judge the national level dance exams organised by them & encourages all her students to appear for the same too annually. She is also an Empanelled artist of the ICCR ( Indian Centre for Cultural Resources ) & IWCF ( India World Cultural Forum ). She has anchored several times on Doordarshan Kendra Mumbai for the National Programme of Dance and music. Dhara started learning Kuchipudi at the age of 8 in Surat and later after completing her Aarangetram in Kuchipudi style in 1994.

She travelled to Sao Paulo, Brazil wherein she stayed for a year on an international cultural exchange program from the Rotary Club & conducted several workshops on Indian Dance & performed extensively too during the one year stay there, hereby enthralling the audience & presenting Indian Culture to an international audience of over 5 thsnd people. She moved to Mumbai and trained in Odissi under her Gurus Smt Daksha Mashruwala and Padma Vibhushan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. She has travelled extensively all around the globe enthralling the audiences with her performances and workshops in countries like Malaysia, Brazil, South Korea, Australia etc just to name a few.

She is also a certified Yoga Teacher from the Yoga Institute Mumbai and is the Artistic director of Nirmohi Academy established in 2008 wherein she imparts training to one and all interested in Dance & Languages based in Andheri West, Mumbai.

Please note: The video will be available for a week post the live lecture/demonstration.