Classical Dance from India Will Blossom
At Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, October 8

Brooklyn, N.Y. — As a key component of its "Lotus Transplanted: India and its Diaspora" Festival, Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus will present a concert of classical Indian dances featuring the Bharata Natyam, Odissi and Kathak dance styles.

The concert will take place on Wednesday, October 8 at noon in the Campus’s Triangle Theater, as part of the Dance Department’s "Afternoons at LIU" concert series, featuring the dancers Chandra Banerjee, Osundara Mayuri and Parul Shah.

Bharata Natyam, indigenous to southern India, is one of the country’s oldest dance forms. It utilizes storytelling using hand gestures and facial expressions. Odissi originated in the temple culture of northeastern India and has evolved into a stylized classical dance form. Dating back to 1250 B.C., Kathak originated in North Indian Hindu temples and was enriched by Persian influence.

Chandra Banerjee was introduced to Indian classical dance at age eight. Specializing in Bharata Natyam and creative dance, she has performed extensively throughout India and internationally. In 1998, she was awarded the prestigious Uday Shanker Award and a scholarship to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. She presently resides in New York and teaches Bharata Natyam.

Osundara Mayuri (also known as Verano La Rue) began her studies in Indian classical dance in the 1980s with Kathak. In the 1990s, she discovered Odissi from Orissa in East India, a form she continues to study with Guru Durga Charan Ranbir. In addition to performing, she is the arts-in-education specialist for Lotus Music & Dance: A Center for Multicultural Exchange in New York.

Parul Shah, performer, dance educator and choreographer, began Kathak at age 10 at the East-West School of Dance in the United States. She has presented workshops in universities such as NYU, Columbia and Yale; and she has performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park, Symphony Space, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

The Dance Department of Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus developed its successful "Afternoons at LIU" series of noontime dance concerts more than a decade ago to make dance artists accessible to students on campus and the public. It offers a B.F.A. in Dance, with concentrations in performance and choreography. For more information, call (718) 488-1051.

Long Island University opened its Brooklyn Campus in 1926, welcoming a diverse population at a time when other major universities enforced quota systems against racial and ethnic minorities. Some 30,000 students currently are enrolled at the university’s three residential and three regional campuses, including nearly 11,000 at the Brooklyn Campus. Located at the corner of Flatbush Avenue Extension and DeKalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, the Campus is accessible to all major bus and subway routes and the Long Island Rail Road.