Toronto Tabla Ensemble is hosting a Kathak Dance Demo by Charlotte Moraga from California.
Kathak artist, Charlotte Moraga, dancing since the age of nine, began her study of kathak with Pandit Chitresh Das in 1992. She joined the Chitresh Das Dance Company in 1996 and has been a featured solo artist in his award-winning works, Pancha Jati and East as Center, as well as Darbar, Subali Sugriwa, Sampurnam, Sita Haran, Yatra, and Shiva.
In 2002, performed her first two hour long solo, “Passing the Torch” with live musical accompaniment, delving deeper into aspects of upaj (improvisation), and gat bhao (storytelling).
Since 2002, she has performed solo concerts in Kolkata, Mumbai, and Pune India, and in many Classical Indian Dance and Music Festivals across the US. She continues to tour as a principal dancer with the Chitresh Das Dance Company to critical acclaim internationally. Some notable tours include Denpasar Bali Arts Festival in 2000, American Dance Festival in 2004, and Shaniwarwada Festival in Pune in 2010, among others. In 2009, Charlotte was awarded a residency for CounterPULSE’s Performing Diaspora Program where she created original work based on the 12th century mystic poem, ‘Conference of the Birds’, in collaboration with composer and musician Prasant Radhakrishnan. She also performed an excerpt of her work, A Conference in Nine, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for San Francisco’s 2013 Ethnic Dance Festival.
Charlotte has dedicated her life to educating people about, and promoting, kathak –both as a performer and a teacher. She is largely responsible for development of the Chitresh Das Dance Company (CDDC) arts education programs in California schools. In addition, Charlotte has given many lecture demonstrations at museums and universities throughout India and the US. Her articles on kathak have been published in Dance Spirit, Dance USA, ejournal, and Dancers Group’s, indance magazine. Charlotte was director of the Chhandam Youth Dance Company (CDYC) during its inaugural year, 2002 and she again became director in 2007. In addition to choreographing pieces for CYDC, Charlotte has been assistant to Pandit Das in choreography for numerous CDDC productions.
