Urja Desai Thakore is a Kathak practitioner and choreographer, and the artistic director of Pagrav Dance Company. Her thought-provoking choreographies have charted new terrains and is highly regarded by both traditionalists and modernists alike. She studied Kathak with Guru Kumudini Lakhia at Kadamb in India for over two decades and she received her BA in Kathak from Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Maha Vidyalaya. She completed an MA in South Asian Dance with choreography from University of Roehampton. She co-choreographed Bells for Akademi in the Trafalgar Square Festival, was an assistant choreographer to Kumudini Lakhia for the Swapnagata Festival at Sadler’s Wells (2009), and a guest choreographer for the south Asian soloist at the BBC Young Dancer competition (2015, 2022). She was appointed artistic director of the first dance festival in Milton Keynes (2012) and was selected for One Dance UK’s mentoring programme (2015). A passionate dance educator, she has been involved with the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) for over two decades. Led by her, the Milton-Keynes based Pagrav Dance Company has toured the full-scale works Baharan, Hats, Anant-Endless, I, Within, Detox and Kattam Katti, nationally.

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