In the first episode of Off Season Chats, Ameya and Kiran speak with Keerthana Ravi, a Bharatanatyam dancer, curator, and entrepreneur based in Mumbai, India. She shares her incredible journey in dance, takes us behind-the-scenes of developing India's first crowd-funded classical dance festival, and discusses the thrills and challenges of dancing during the pandemic.

Off Season Chats is a new series in which we have intimate conversations with dancers who are forging new paths in their artistic, personal, and professional lives. Our special guests are accomplished artists whose works span across many genres of South Asian dance including: Kathak, Kandyan, Kuchipudi, Bharatanatyam, Manipuri, Odissi, and much more.

About Keerthana Ravi:

Keerthana began her training in Bharatanatyam with Smt. Padmini Ramachandran in Bangalore, and she is currently undergoing advanced training with Smt. Rama Vaidyanathan. She has also studied Carnatic music, Kalaripayattu, and Kathak. An award-winning dancer, she is an A-Grade Artiste of Doordarshan, toured several countries as a performer, and represented India as a youth cultural ambassador at the 2005 World Youth Congress in Scotland.

A post-graduate in Communication Management and Fine Arts, she founded RasaBodhi Art Foundation and organized India's first crowdfunded classical dance festival in 2016. She created two new productions - Varsham and Adjayega Hans Akela - during the pandemic through a unique mentorship project with Kathak exponent Prerana Shrimali.

Instagram: @keerthanaravi

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/keerthana.ravi.33

Today’s episode of Off Season Chats would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of our amazing listeners and the following people:

• We Edit Podcasts for audio engineering
• Sangeetha Kowsik for graphic design of our logo
• Wesley Beeks & Bertel King, Jr.

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Off Season Chats is an Off The Beat production