Summer Indian Dance Intensive 2025
Join the UNC Charlotte Department of Dance for the annual Odissi Odyssey Dance Intensive! This will entail a week of multiple Indian dance classes in Odissi, Kuchipudi, Shilpanatanam among other forms. There shall be informal artist labs, open rehearsals, and open practice sessions! Among our teachers, are Padmashree Dr. Ileana Citaristi and Guru Krishna Bharathi.
Odissi Odyssey is UNC Charlotte Dance’s outreach to the diasporic dance community. Over the years, we have had stalwarts and emerging artists share their expertise and passion with the Charlotte community. Artists namely, Dr. Rohini Dandavate, Guru Sujata Mohapatra, Guru Aruna Mohanty, and Guru Meera Das have shared their time in the university premises. This year, brings a roster of teachers who teach from their research in expanding the movement as well as creative expression within the traditional repertoire. In addition, we plan on reaching out to the larger Indian dance community by focusing on workshops on Abhinaya or the phenomenological skill of enactment that will help bridge linguistic divides in the diaspora. We bring clusters of Shilpanatanam, a contemporary movement vocabulary founded by Dr. Maya Kulkarni. Finally, we will honor latest inductees of the Scouts and Guides Program of Dance and Community Research Institute.
Program Director Bio
Founder of the Odissi Odyssey conference held annually at UNC Charlotte, Kaustavi Sarkar is a professional Odissi soloist, performing and touring the eastern Indian traditional art form for the past two decades. In a recent review of a February 2025 performance in New Delhi, India, critic Ashish Mohan Khokar wrote that in her dance “one saw clarity of poses and emotional range.” Sarkar investigates virtuosity in dance-theater as fostered in traditional Indian aesthetics through her research on choreography and creative processes. She has commissioned works from female choreographers Ananya Chatterjea, Rohini Dandavate, Aruna Mohanty, and Maya Kulkarni to research and write about the creative process in South Asian aesthetics. Her book Dance Technology and Social Justice: Individual and Collective Emancipation Through Embodied Techniques (McFarland, 2024) has been featured in Dance Studies Association’s 2024-2025 Reading Seminars. Sarkar is a leader in her field and serves as a Regional Director for the American College Dance Association (ACDA: mid-Atlantic). As Convenor of “Dance and Community Research Institute,” she brings artists, educators, and scholars together towards systemic change. She is the founding member as well as business manager for the journal South Asian Dance Intersections.
