Nrithyavilasini Guru Smt. Manasi Raghunandan

Smt. Manasi is the President of Abhivyakti Dance Center, Bangalore. She is an exponent of Odissi and Bharatanatyam. She is a researcher, danseuse, teacher, art critic and a passionate writer. She is UGC NET qualified assistant professor in dance. She is a double post graduate and holds master’s degree in Odissi from Rabindra Bharti University, Kolkata and master’s degree in English literature from Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara. She holds a post graduate diploma in French. She also is a Kovida in Odissi from Nalanda Dance research centre, Mumbai and Alankar in Bharatanatyam with gold medal.

She has many critically acclaimed choreographies to her credit such as; “Sri Ramaraksha strotam”, “Hanumaan Chalisa”, “Kala Sangam”, “Sandhya devi strotam”, “Abhayankar Shiva raksha strotam”, “Mangalacharana – Vishnu stutee”, and on astadikpalakas, “Pallavi in kadanakoothuhala”, “Kannada vachanas” and many more. She is a polyglot and speaks Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, English, French, Odiya, Bengali and Spanish.

She has been felicitated and awarded by several organizations of national and international repute. She has bagged Nrithya Vilasini, Purva Ratna, CCRT National scholarship, Bharatashree, Dancing queen, Govt. of Gujarat women’s day award and many more. She has regular students taking training under her tutelage from Bangalore as well as other parts of India and also from Russia, Brazil, Austria, China, Canada, Switzerland, Sri Lanka and USA.

She aims to take Bharatanatyam and Odissi to the utmost perfection and provide quality training. She also wants to continue being primarily a performer herself of high caliber. She has been the disciple of Padmashree Late. Guru Shri Gangadhar Pradhan, Odisha (Odissi dance) and Guru Sharad Pandya and Niru Pandya “Purva” Gujarat. (Bharatanatyam)

She had recently been invited by the Open National University in Subotica for international conference and paper presentation on performing arts and her paper has been published in the international bilingual journal in English and Serbian. She has been featured for her dance at the Discovery channel, Washington DC and in other leading print and electronic media.

She is also the member of board of directors, elected for world culture MIFA, Italy. She is also a part of selection committee of various dance festivals. She is also invited as a guest critic to review dance programs and festivals.

She has also performed at several festivals such as SZCC National dance festival, Kerala, ICCR Efcep, Bengaluru, SNA Nrithya Pratibha Aurangabad, Nalanda Nrithyotsava, Mumbai, Indradhanush Delhi, Konark dance and music festival, Konark, RukminiDevi arundale festival, Kolkata, Purva International classical dance festival, Baroda, Jalgaon, National Odissi dance festival, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Kala vaibhavam, Singapore, Guru dakshina, Bhubaneswar, Nupura nitya nrithya festival, Bangalore, Bharata kalanjali, Vellore, Visesha kala poshakam, Chennai, keshava dance festival Bangalore and many more.

She has performed and conducted workshops and master classes at Spain, France, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Mauritius as well as thrice at Pakistan. She has also been recently invited to showcase her dance and conduct workshops at Serbia, Yugoslavia and Russia.

She believes in quality training, performing and research work as the key to the future of Indian classical dance for individual growth and of it as at the global presence.