Dance
Alka Nayyar has been creating, teaching and performing South Asian folk, modern, and semi-classical dances for the last 20 years—in Chicago, Washington D.C., and wherever else she can. Through her work, she aims to promote an accurate understanding of South Asian culture and its global impact. Alka is the Lead Choreographer of the Chitrahar Cultural Academy, an organization dedicated to promoting cultural awareness and diversity through the performing arts. In 2010, she was proud to present the well-received “Bollywood” dance class at the Old Town School of Folk Music’s annual Folk and Roots Festival. She has taught Indian dance classes at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools After School Program, the Menomonee Club and is thrilled to be teaching at the Old Town School of Folk Music!
Alka’s prior and theater work includes:
Jeff-nominated choreography for Rasaka Theatre Company’s The Masrayana, Lifeline Theatre’s The Piano Tuner, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company’s thinkTank: Immigration, and thinkTank: American Ethnic, Rasaka's Yoni Ki Baat, and Halcyon Theatre’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie.
She was delighted to work on Silk Road Theatre Project’s critically-acclaimed, hit production of Merchant On Venice, as well as its Balacarita, Double Happiness, 365 Days/365 Plays, and Looptopia presentations.
Her work also includes Vitalist Theatre’s production of E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India by Martin Sherman, the Chicago Cultural Center's Summer Opera presentation of George Bizet's Djamileh, and Porchlight Theatre’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures. Alka was recently proud to work with Collaboraction! to present at the Art Institute's After Dark event.
Started at the Old Town School in December of 2008
- http://www.chitrahar.org
