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Chitresh Das
Chitresh Das (Devanagari: ) (9 November 1944 – 4 January 2015) was a classical dancer of the North Indian style of Kathak. Born in Calcutta, Das was a performer, choreographer, composer and educator. He was instrumental in bringing Kathak to the US and is credited with having established Kathak amongst the Indian diaspora in America. In 1979, Das established the Chhandam School of Kathak and the Chitresh Das Dance Company in California. In 2002, he founded Chhandam Nritya Bharati in India. There were ten branches of Chhandam worldwide. Until his death in 2015, Das taught dance as a way of life, a path for attaining self-knowledge and as a service to society. Das performed in India, North America and Europe. He was known for his virtuosic footwork, rhythmic adeptness, compelling storytelling, as well as his innovation of "Kathak Yoga". Early life and background Chitresh Das was born in Calcutta, West Bengal to Nrityacharya Prohlad Das and Smt. Nilima Das. His parents found ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ali Akbar College
ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ( ar, عَلِيّ بْن أَبِي طَالِب; 600 – 661 CE) was the last of four Rightly Guided Caliphs to rule Islam (r. 656 – 661) immediately after the death of Muhammad, and he was the first Shia Imam. The issue of his succession caused a major rift between Muslims and divided them into Shia and Sunni groups. Ali was assassinated in the Grand Mosque of Kufa in 661 by the forces of Mu'awiya, who went on to found the Umayyad Caliphate. The Imam Ali Shrine and the city of Najaf were built around Ali's tomb and it is visited yearly by millions of devotees. Ali was a cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, raised by him from the age of 5, and accepted his claim of divine revelation by age 11, being among the first to do so. Ali played a pivotal role in the early years of Islam while Muhammad was in Mecca and under severe persecution. After Muhammad's relocation to Medina in 622, Ali married his daughter Fatima and, among others, fathered Hasan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly ranked universities in the world. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is valued at $50.9 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Endowment inco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kathak Yoga
Kathak ( hi, कथक; ur, کتھک) is one of the eight major forms of Indian classical dance. It is the classical dance from of Uttar Pradesh. The origin of Kathak is traditionally attributed to the traveling bards in ancient northern India known as Kathakars or storytellers. The term Kathak is derived from the Vedic Sanskrit word which means "story", and ''Kathakar'' which means "the one who tells a story", or "to do with stories". Wandering Kathakars communicated stories from the great epics and ancient mythology through dance, songs and music. Kathak dancers tell various stories through their hand movements and extensive footwork, their body movements and flexibility but most importantly through their facial expressions. Kathak evolved during the Bhakti movement, particularly by incorporating the childhood and stories of the Hindu god Krishna, as well as independently in the courts of north Indian kingdoms. During the period of Mughal rule, the emperors were patrons of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chitresh Das
Chitresh Das (Devanagari: ) (9 November 1944 – 4 January 2015) was a classical dancer of the North Indian style of Kathak. Born in Calcutta, Das was a performer, choreographer, composer and educator. He was instrumental in bringing Kathak to the US and is credited with having established Kathak amongst the Indian diaspora in America. In 1979, Das established the Chhandam School of Kathak and the Chitresh Das Dance Company in California. In 2002, he founded Chhandam Nritya Bharati in India. There were ten branches of Chhandam worldwide. Until his death in 2015, Das taught dance as a way of life, a path for attaining self-knowledge and as a service to society. Das performed in India, North America and Europe. He was known for his virtuosic footwork, rhythmic adeptness, compelling storytelling, as well as his innovation of "Kathak Yoga". Early life and background Chitresh Das was born in Calcutta, West Bengal to Nrityacharya Prohlad Das and Smt. Nilima Das. His parents found ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California from 2011 to 2019 and the 42nd mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011. Newsom attended Redwood High School and graduated from Santa Clara University. After graduation, he founded the PlumpJack wine store with billionaire heir and family friend, Gordon Getty, as an investor. The PlumpJack Group grew to manage 23 businesses, including wineries, restaurants and hotels. Newsom began his political career in 1996, when San Francisco mayor Willie Brown appointed him to the city's Parking and Traffic Commission. Brown appointed Newsom to fill a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors the next year and Newsom was elected to the board in 1998, 2000 and 2002. In 2003, at age 36, Newsom was elected the 42nd mayor of San Francisco, the city's youngest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jason Samuels Smith
Jason Samuels Smith (born October 4, 1980) is an American tap dancer, choreographer, and director. Early life and career Samuels Smith was born in New York City to professional performing arts parents Sue Samuels and JoJo Smith. He began his professional performing career at an early age through Frank Hatchett's Professional Children's Program at the Broadway Dance Center in New York City. At a young age, he had appearances on the television show ''Sesame Street'', and at the age of 15, was understudy to the leading role in the Tony Award-winning Broadway show '' Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk''. Awards and recognition He won both an Emmy and American Choreography Award for "Outstanding Choreography" for the Opening number of the 2003 Jerry Lewis/MDA Telethon in a tribute to the late Gregory Hines. Samuels Smith was also awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by the City of Los Angeles for creating the First Annual Los Angeles Tap Festival in 2003 and received a proclama ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the second time that Los Angeles had hosted the Games, the first being in 1932. California was the home state of the incumbent U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who officially opened the Games. These were the first Summer Olympic Games under the IOC presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch. The 1984 Games were boycotted by a total of fourteen Eastern Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union and East Germany, in response to the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Romania and Yugoslavia were the only Socialist European states that opted to attend the Games. Albania, Iran and Libya also chose to boycott the Games for unrelated reasons. Despite the field being depleted in certain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar (; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, sometimes spelled as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known export of North Indian classical music in the second half of the 20th century, and influenced many musicians in India and throughout the world. Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999. Shankar was born to a Bengali Brahmin family in India, and spent his youth as a dancer touring India and Europe with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the ''Apu Trilogy'' by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956. In 1956, Shankar began to tour Europe and the Americas playing Indian classical music and incr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guru
Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverential figure to the disciple (or '' shisya'' in Sanskrit, literally ''seeker f knowledge or truth'' or student, with the guru serving as a "counselor, who helps mold values, shares experiential knowledge as much as literal knowledge, an exemplar in life, an inspirational source and who helps in the spiritual evolution of a student". Whatever language it is written in, Judith Simmer-Brown explains that a tantric spiritual text is often codified in an obscure twilight language so that it cannot be understood by anyone without the verbal explanation of a qualified teacher, the guru. A guru is also one's spiritual guide, who helps one to discover the same potentialities that the ''guru'' has already realized. The oldest references to the concep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seema Mehta
Seema Kaushik Mehta (born c.1976) is an Indian Kathak expert and designer of jewellery. She received the Nari Shakti Puraskar award for her dancing advocacy in 2019 after working with under-privileged children in Mumbai. Life She was born in about 1976 and she studied at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. She became a Chitresh Das disciple in 2010 and followed his ideas until his death in 2015. She trained with him and would perform his style of dancing in India. She and Pandit Das founded the second branch of his school in India, Chhandam Nritya Bharati, in Mumbai in 2010. Mehta's mentor had taught Kathak dance to the children of sex workers in Calcutta to help them break free of the cycle of exploitation. Mehta was given the Nari Shakti Puraskar award on International Women's Day in 2019. 1000 women were nominated for the award and 44 were chosen to receive it. She was chosen because of her work with under-privileged children in Mumbai. They were learning to dance, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joanna De Souza
Joanna De Souza (born October 22, 1955) is a Canadian Kathak choreographer, dancer and teacher. She is the only Canadian born artist to achieve a master's degree in kathak dance through the Prayag Sangit Samiti, Allahabad, India. Early life De Souza was born and raised in Whitby, Ontario. She started studying piano at the age of five, and as a teenager, was a member of an award-winning classical vocal group for nine voices, under the directorship of Marian Williams. She studied figure skating throughout her childhood, but had no background in dance. Education After studying Forestry for one year at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, she moved to British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ..., and then traveled to California in 1978, where she began studying ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
