Communities of Practice across Master-Artist, Soloist, and Apprentice

A dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher and commentator, Maya Kulkarni is a highly respected and well-known figure in the Indian dance world. As a performer, she won widespread praise for her flawless technique and story-telling abilities. Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times hailed her as the ‘Dancer’s Dancer”. Maya has performed extensively in the US, Europe and India and composed many of her own dance pieces. In the past decade she had choreographed 24 new pieces of works ranging from 15 minutes to 45 minutes long productions. Among these, “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, “Medea’s passion” and “Adventures of a Naughty Bee” stretch the boundaries of the classical forms to non-traditional themes and demonstrate the versatility and richness of Shilpanatana dance form. Maya has composed within the traditional genre as well. “Ardhanarinateswara”, “Sayankale”, and “Yakshini”, “Impossible Romance”, “The Woman with Parrot”, “The Huntress” and “The woman in the Mirror” are created closer to the traditional form. The Greek mythological pieces were shown to glowing notices first in 2019 at the ‘Drive East’ festival in New York City. ‘The Allegory of the Cave’ was presented at the Erasing Border festival. “The Adventures of a Naughty Bee” premiered in 2021, while “Medea’s passion” and “Impossible Romance” were presented at the We are Dancing festival on 7th May 2022.