Indian Artpreneur

On the 8th episode of Season 2, “The resilient Entrepreneurs” on Indian Artpreneur Podcast, we speak to Rukmini Vijayakumar, who is the artistic director of Raadha Kalpa Dance Company, and the director of Lshva, a creative space for artists in the heart of Bangalore. She is the founder of The Raadha Kalpa method an educational system for Bharatanatyam that is based on the idea of neutrality. 

Rukmini's approach to Bharatanatyam is dedicated, rigorous and layered. She has presented her work as a soloist all over the world, including venues such as the Jacobs Pillow festival, Drive East NYC, and the Korzo Theater. Recently she played ‘the goddess of love' in ‘Sukanya', produced by The Royal Opera house in London. 

She has studied Bharatanatyam under Guru Padmini Rao, Guru Sundari Santhanam and Guru Narmada. Her style is greatly influenced by the ancient movement practice of Karanas. A Graduate of the Boston Conservatory, Rukmini's process of creation is both traditional and contemporary. She was a recipient of the Jiri Kylian grant for choreography and a resident choreographer at Korzo theater, Netherlands in 2018.

Her productions, Nayani, Prabhavati, AbhimatA, Talattu and The Dark Lord have toured india and the world extensively. Her more recent work, Turiya, MALA, The Muse and Unrequited were created within the contemporary idiom and have been appreciated for their creative approach to the bharatanatyam vocabulary. She was bestowed the title of Arsha Kala Bhushanam by Swami Dayananda Saraswati. Also an actor, Rukmini has been recognised for the roles that she has played in a number of Indian Films and Theater performances

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On the 7th episode of Season 2, “The resilient Entrepreneurs” on Indian Artpreneur Podcast, we speak to Sandeep Virdee OBE, the founder and artistic director of Darbar Festival, UK. Abandoning a successful career in accountancy, Sandeep curated his first Indian classical musical festival in honour of his late father, Gurmit Singh Virdee, in 2006 and has never looked back since. He is currently Artistic Director for Darbar.

The Darbar has re-shaped the landscape of Indian classical music in Britain, by promoting excellence, risk taking and innovation. In this interesting conversation, Sandeep Virdee talks about the History, Values, Philosophy, Sources of funding of Darbar Festival.

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On the 6th episode of Season 2, “The Resilient Enterpreneurs” on Indian Artpreneur Podcast, we speak to Shreya Nagarajan Singh, the founder of SNS Arts Development Cosultancy based in Chennai. Shreya studied arts management at the DakshinaChitra Heritage Museum and completed the Asia Pacific Leadership Program at the East West Centre in Hawaii, before spending a number of years at Apparao Galleries. At Apparao, she ran over 200 of their events, developing strong relationships with Sharan Apparao and others.

Born into a family of patrons and performers of the South Indian performance arts of Bharatanatyam & Carnatic music, she has been exposed to the forms throughout her life. From an early age she began training, teaching and performing in Bharatanatyam. She is a student of Bharatanatyam legend Rhadha Ramanathan.

In 2015, Shreya was awarded the coveted Fulbright Nehru Fellowship to pursue a Masters in Arts Management at Columbia College Chicago. While completing her masters in Chicago, she also worked as the project manager on the Eye On India festival.

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On the 5th episode of Season 2, “The Resilient Enterpreneurs” on Indian Artpreneur Podcast, we speak to Balakrishnan Venkataraman, The Founder and Artistic Director of Theatre Nisha(Chennai) that has staged over 120 plays in the past 20 years under its banner in over 15 international, national and regional theatre festivals. Balakrishnan V is an alumnus of Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts (New Delhi) and the National School of Drama (New Delhi).

He was awarded the Charles Wallace Scholarship to attend an International Residency for Young Directors with the Royal Court Theatre, London. In his career as a theatre artist, he has directed over 200 plays, acted in over 150 plays and written over 10 scripts. He has worked with several international dancers and theatre professionals on collaborative projects, including Performance Group Tuida, from South Korea.

He has to his credit several workshops on different aspects of theatre, which have benefitted artists, teachers, dancers, students, and members of marginalised communities.

In 2015, he was invited to be a TEDx speaker at the Bangalore convention, where he spoke on ‘How to Build a Character?' In 2017, he was awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching (FDAT) and returned having completed a 4-month inquiry-based project from Indiana University. In 2018, the Rotary Club of Madras East conferred the Dronacharya Award on him for his contributions to theatre education. In 2019, he won the Hindu Playwright Award for his play Sordid which premiered at Natarani Amphitheatre in March 2020. 

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On the fourth episode of “The resilient Entrepreneurs” we speak to Dr. Anita Ratnam, the founder of Narthaki. Dr. Ratnam is highly respected as a performer, writer, speaker and arts entrepreneur and culture mentor.  She has been described as an “Intersectionist”, whose work weaves the many disciplines of dance, theater, spoken word, ritual, archaeology, dramaturgy and women's issues.

For over 40 years, her distinguished career has witnessed over 1300 performances in 37 countries. Dr Ratnam's background as a television producer in New York City (1980 to 1990) as well as her educational qualifications in Dance, History, Theatre and Women's Studies (MA and Phd) have made her a popular speaker for diverse audiences.

Her formal training in Bharatanatyam, Mohiniattam and Kathakali has given Dr. Ratnam a distinctive movement vocabulary that she has named NEO BHARATAM – a contemporary Indian kinetic situated on a mature body.

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On the third episode of “The resilient Entrepreneurs” we speak to Skanda Anantha Murthy, the founder of Shaale. Skanda launched Shaale as an online platform to make Indian arts and culture more accessible to people all over the world. Encouraged by his mother, musician and Sanskrit professor, Dr. T S Satyavathi, Skanda launched Shaale in 2012, in Bengaluru.

Shaale is known for its online courses in classical music. It also provides video recording, live-streaming (webcast), video on demand, and 4k video audio documentation for artistes, researchers, organisers, and students for free or at subsidized rates. Shaale has streamed events for over 1500 organizations, pan-India.

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On the second episode of Season 2, “The resilient Entrepreneurs”, we have Sruti Harihara Subramanian, who has conceived and directed the Amazon Exclusive musical docu-series “Harmony with A. R. Rahman.” Sruti is a National award winning film maker and a theater actor with a deep love for animals and the environment.

Her debut feature documentary ‘A Far Afternoon ‘ on eminent painter Krishen Khanna bagged the Rajat Kamal for the best art/cultural film at the 63rd Indian National Film Awards and also the best music for non- feature film. It has been screened across various film festivals and cities including London, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Kochi, Hyderabad, Stockholm and in the USA. It has been nominated for the best documentary in the New York Indian International Film Festival 2016 and at The Indian Film Festival at Stuttgart.

Sruti's company Happy Wanderer Films has several national and international corporate and ad films to its credit for companies and NGOs like Piramal Enterprises, Vasan Eye Care, Brittania, Amec Foster Wheeler , Craft Council of India, Villgro, Cuomo Foundation an Ngo based in Monaco etc.

Sruti is the founder trustee of The Cinema Resource Centre (TCRC) which is a not-for-profit public archive of Indian cinema designed to enable research on the audio-visual cultural artifacts produced by Indian films, especially those made in the regional languages of South India.

Sruti also runs golisodastore.com a platform to bring environment-friendly products to the mainstream market. Sruti has been working on a couple of feature film scripts and in her spare time she pursues her love for acting by performing with the Chennai based theatre group Theatre Nisha.

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On our first episode of season 2, “The resilient Entrepreneurs” we speak to Akhila Krishnamurthy, the founder of Aalaap. Akhila is a freelance journalist and the founder of Aalaap, a boutique arts management company based in Chennai. Akhila founded Aalaap after a 15-year career in journalism where she worked across leading publications in India, including The Times of India where she was the Editor of all the supplements. As a freelance writer, Akhila has contributed essays and features across The Hindu, the India Today Group, Outlook, Tehelka, Open, and Sruti. 

Aalaap is Akhila's brainchild and is an ideas and innovations company that works with classical artistes from across the world across aspects of ideation, curation, production, publicity and strategy. Personally, she is passionate about artistes and the world they inhabit, and is constantly investigating the many shifts that make it so dynamic and exciting. She is a mother of a six-year-old and has spoken at TEDxNapierBridge on her two babies – Aryan and Aalaap – and how the principles of parenting and that of entrepreneurship, in a sense, mirror each other.

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On our final episode of Season 1 ‘Victory against the odds‘ on Indian Artpreneur Podcast, we speak to Music Maestro Smt. Sudeshna Bhattacharya, residing in Oslo, Norway. Smt. Sudeshna began to learn at the age of four from her father Pandit Shri Krishnamohan Bhattacharya and later at the age of eight she began to learn sarod from one of the greatest sarod maestroes of the world, the legend Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. Smt. Sudeshna became Ustad Amjad Ali Khan Gandabandh disiple.

In 2003 the Ministry of Culture in France invited her to the Strictly Mondial international festival, and offered her a ten year contract. She lived in Marseilles where she gave concerts, recordings and participated in French cultural happenings with the support of the French Ministry of Culture. In 2015, she moved to Norway, and is a university lecturer for master students at the Norwegian Academy of Music, and continues touring the world for her concerts, recording albums, and making musical projects.

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On our 11th episode of Indian Artpreneur, Season 1, Victory against the odds, we speak to Kuchipudi dancer Avijit Das.

Born in a small village in West Bengal, Avijit moves to Chennai and eventually to Bengaluru for his passion towards dance. Despite many challenges Avijit navigates his way in mastering the art form from various gurus. He is the founder of KimAham School of Dance

Avijit was initiated into Bharatanatyam at the age of five under the guidance of Smt. Sanaka Biswas of Shanti Niketan,West Bengal, India. He obtained his Diploma in Bharatanatyam from Kalakshetra (Rukmini Devi College of Fine Arts), Chennai, India on a meritorious scholarship in 2011. He also developed keen interest in the Kuchipudi style of dance. After initial training in Kuchipudi Art Academy under legendary Guru Sri Vempati Chinna Satyam and renowned Kuchipudi exponent Smt. Manju Bharggavee, he is currently training under the guidance of Sri Jaikishore Mosalikanti .Avi also has a Diploma in Carnatic music.

As an artist he has over 10 years of experience and has been invited to perform as a soloist at prestigious dance festivals across the globe including USA, Mexico, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Bhutan. Nationally he had more than 100 performances to his accolade across India.

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