Aggie Brenneman

🪔 About

Aggie Brenneman has been teaching dance in the SF Bay Area for over 40 years, after having lived in India, Nepal and Malaysia for nine years. She studied Bharatanatyam with the renowned Thanjavur Balasaraswati and her daughter, Lakshmi Knight, at the Center for World Music in Berkeley, the American Dance Festivals at Connecticut College and Duke University, and at their home in Chennai, India. She was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to research mythology and to study with Smt. Shyamala, a disciple of Balasaraswati in India. Aggie has performed in the US, India, Nepal and Malaysia. Since 2016 she has made frequent trips to India to assist Aniruddha Knight, grandson of Balasaraswati, in teaching dance at his school in Chennai. Aggie was a classroom teacher at Park Day School in Oakland for 30 years where she began a Bharatanatyam program that has reached over 500 students of diverse backgrounds. She now serves as a docent at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum. Through her involvement in Bharatanatyam, Aggie strives to preserve the ancient dance tradition of the South Indian Tanjore Court in the style of T. Balasaraswati.