A Day of Dance & Music

Diya Naidu is a dancer, facilitator and choreographer. Her movement training includes ISTD Jazz Ballet, Matt Mattox Jazz Technique, Martial Art training, Yoga, Body Conditioning and Contemporary Dance techniques . She has also trained in Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Contact work, Improvisation and Basic ballet. Her contemporary expression is influenced by all of the above. She is interested in both intensely physical and challenging approaches to learning and practicing dance, as well as in engaging with movement and the body from a somatic and organic point of exploration and self-discovery. She interned with The Danceworx , New Delhi for three years, after which she was a repertory member and teacher with Rythmosaic ( a Kolkata based Kathak and Jazz company). In 2006 she became a student at The Attakkalari Centre For Movement Arts, Bangalore and received her Diploma in Movement Arts and Mixed Media. She was a member of Attakkalari’s repertory company form 2007 to 2014, dancing in several full length productions that were performed all over India as well as Internationally. She was an active member of the educational outreach project, teaching both community and schools. In 2009, she began to make independent choreography and has presented in festivals in India and abroad. She holds a degree in English Literature from Delhi University.

Tara Kini is an independent consultant in Education and Music and works with several reputed institutions in Bangalore, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Ahmedabad, developing curriculum, and training teachers and trainers. Tara has been a teacher and administrator in Mallya Aditi International School for twenty years. She partnered in setting up the Centre for Education, Research and Training in the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology.

Tara has trained intensively in Hindustani classical music, from the late Shri Narayan Rao Patwardhan, Smt. Mira Khirwadkar Deshpande, and the late Pandit Rama Rao V. Naik. She is currently training in Khayal from Smt Lalith J Rao, and in Dhrupad from Padmashree Gundecha Brothers. She has helped to set up a school of Dhrupad in Bengaluru, called the Dhrupad Sankula, affiliated to the Dhrupad Sansthan, Bhopal, where a senior disciple of the Gundecha Brothers, Amita Sinha Mahapatra teaches regularly.

Tara has composed music for theatre, and directed music shows. She has taught a course on the Music and Religion of South Asia in Stanford University and presented research papers on music and education in Sheffield and Helsinki.

Tara is the founder director of a music collective called Sunaad that has presented several shows that demystify classical music. The last four projects in Sunaad that she has conceptualised and directed, Swar Katha Upanishad, Isha Rumi- Beyond Form, Mandukya Sant Vani and Kenopanishad, have Dhrupad music composed by the Gundecha Brothers.