MOVING TO RHYTHM
A 65th Year Celebration of Menaka Thakkar

The year-long celebration of Menaka Thakkar's legacy continues February 15-17th at Premiere Dance Theatre with an exciting new show featuring dancers who have studied and performed with the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company (MTDC) throughout her 35 years in Canada.

The show begins with solos by two of Menaka's early students who are now renowned, international dancers in their own right. Niharika Mohanty from San Francisco will perform an exquisite Odissi work followed by Canada's Nova Bhattacharya performing an original choreography reflecting modern south asian dance. Following these two tributes, MDTC will perform a new choreography created by Menaka Thakkar entitled MOVING TO RHYTHM with music and rhythms created by Montreal's Vasudevan Govindarajan and Toronto composer Ron Allen. MOVING TO RHYTHM will illustrate through dance, the evolution of Menaka's dance from the time she arrived bringing Indian dance to Canadian audiences for the first time through to her experience of different dance cultures which influenced her new choreographies.

In the second half, MTDC will present a re-mount of Menaka Thakkar's LOVE'S FOLLY, an amusing Valentine's Day piece about the frustrations and joys of romance. LOVE'S FOLLY and MOVING TO RHYTHM will feature performances by top company dancers including Sukeyna Subramaniam, Shantini Kangesan, Nina Jayaragan, Paranitha Rajagopalan and Renita Fernandez with two rising bharatanatyam stars from India, Pavitra Bhatt and Kalishwaran Pillai.

Menaka Thakkar is a master dancer in three classical Indian styles - Bharatanatyam, Odissi and Kuchipudi. Now in her 65th year, Ms. Thakkar settled in Canada over 35 years ago at the peak of her career as an international soloist. She is credited (along with Kathak dancer, Rina Singha) as having been the first artist to introduce Indian culture to Canadian audiences.

In the early years Ms. Thakkar performed across Canada and soon began to train youngsters in classical bharatanatyam. Eventually she began creating original choreographies that were performed in major venues across Canada. She opened the first school of Indian dance in Canada, Nrytakala which continues to train new generations of dancers and formed the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company comprised of graduates of her school.

The Menaka Thakkar Dance Company became the first South Asian arts organization to be recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts thereby opening the door to other multicultural artists to receive funding. Today the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company, known as MTDC is Canada's premiere Indian dance company. It includes up to 20 professional dancers who have each studied with Ms. Thakkar over 16 years.

Ms. Thakkar has won many awards and honours in her long career including an honourary doctorate from York University, 2006 City of Toronto Face the Arts Cultural Maverick Award for Dance, Toronto Arts Award for Performing Arts, President's Award from Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce and Tri-National Creative Residency Award from the Canada-Mexico joint program administered by the National Endowment for the Arts, USA.

Ms. Thakkar has created groundbreaking choreographies since coming to Canada which reflect both her exposure to western dance styles and her background in classical Indian dance. She has collaborated with many of Canada's most accomplished dancers including Claudia Moore, Danny Grossman, William Lau, Robert Desrosiers, Patrick Parson, Debbie Wilson and Grant Strate to create possibly some of the first fusion pieces in Canada and group choreographies for Indian dancers.

Today the legacy continues with the formation of the new contemporary wing of MTDC which nurtures young professionals in creating choreography and provides opportunities to work with company dancers. Ms. Thakkar's school, Nrytakala, located in Thornhill, Ontario trains over 100 students from ages 5 to 18 years old annually and has graduated close to 150 students in their junior and senior arangetrams. Many of the graduates have gone on to develop their own dance companies and solo careers in dance such as Winnipeg's "Manohar Dance Company", Natasha Bakht, Niharika Mohanty, and Nova Bhattacharya.

MTDC has recently developed a new wing for young audiences and performs shows in theatres and schools in Ontario and British Columbia annually. The Menaka Thakkar Dance Company continues to perform an annual home season in Toronto and tours nationally every year. The MTDC dancers are rigorously trained and continuously provided with professional development training in body conditioning and with special choreo-labs in other kinds of dance styles to increase their versatility as dancers.

Menaka Thakkar continues to oversee the company and school's operations as the Artistic Director and continues to develop uncompromising choreographies which consistently break new ground and change the face of Indian dance in Canada.

Tickets are on sale at:
Premiere Dance Theatre
Harbourfront Centre, Toronto
http://tickets.harbourfrontcentre.com
Box office: 416 - 973 - 4000

Ticket Prices:
$30, $25 General Admission
$24, $20 Students/Seniors/Arts Professionals
$25.50, $21.25 Next Steps Subscribers

Show Times:
Thursday February 15th - 8pm
Friday February 16th - 8pm
Saturday February 17th - 8pm
Sunday February 18th - 3pm

www.menakathakkardance.org