Dancer-choreographer Madhu Natraj will lead the two-day dance event in Bengaluru
| Photo Credit: Special arrangement
A conference titled Choreographing Continuum, will be held in Bengaluru this weekend in memory of renowned Kathak dancer Maya Rao, to commemorate her contributions to Indian dance and to explore ways to carry her legacy forward.
The conference is being hosted by the Natya Institute of Kathak & Choreography (NIKC), one of India’s premier institutions for contemporary classical dance, founded in 1964 by Maya with social reformer and activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay.
The 2026 edition, led by Maya’s daughter and dancer-choreographer, Madhu Natraj, founder of STEM Dance Kampni, will explore her legacy as living praxis — how choreographic thinking moves through time, responding to climate change, AI, healing, identity, and social transformation.
Dance, Madhu says, occupies a prominent place in cultural, social, and political spaces. “Maya was an avid academic, researcher, renaissance woman and guru. This conference celebrates the legacy of the woman who started it all.”
Through this conference, Madhu hopes to look at documentation and archives for the future. “We will also explore the role of art in a polarised world.”
The two-day event will bring together artists, scholars, philanthropists, and cultural thinkers for performances, conversations, and immersive archival experiences. It will include Yatra, a Natya retrospective, as well as performances by Project Abhinaya, Palimpsest and Asha Esperanza, among others, as well as an exhibition centred on ethos, echoes and expressions.
This year’s edition will feature Datuk Ramli Ibrahim, a Malaysian choreographer, authors Rohini Nilekani, Shobha Narayan and Vikram Sampath, dancers Sandhya Purecha, Anita Ratnam and Siddhi Goel, Amit Wanchoo, social activist and entrepreneur, and artist Masoom Parmar artist. There will also be a curated walk and a flamenco dance workshop, Unleash the Fire.
Madhu believes dance, as an art form, has been diluted. “If you look at Natya Shastra (the Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts), it has always been accommodative and evolving, pollinated by poetry, architecture and politics, changing with the times. Now, with reality TV becoming an important stakeholder in the entertainment industry, the purity of the art form has been diluted.”
Madhu hopes to engender more conversations about dance, and says events like these point people in the right direction.
Choreographing Continuum will take place on January 31 and February 1 at Sabha BLR between 9.30am and 5.30pm. Register for the event here.
Published – January 27, 2026 09:49 pm IST
