Tara Catherine Pandeya

🪔 About

Tara Catherine Pandeya is a Bay Area-born dance artist, choreographer, scholar, and cultural activist with a diverse background in global dance forms. Exposed to dance and music from infancy, she began her training in Indian classical dance at the age of three, and later in tap dance at eight. Her mother, Barbara Framm, is a dance artist who has practiced and performed Bharatanatyam and Odissi for nearly four decades. Pandeya's extensive training also includes traditional Middle Eastern, Central Asian, modern, and ethno-contemporary dance styles. Her mentors include Zaragol Iskandarova, Katarina Burda, Charya Burt, Antonia Minnecola, Farohat Saidova, Bea Blum, Katherine Kunhiraman, and her mother. Pandeya's career spans nearly two decades, marked by international performances, teaching, and choreographic work across 35 countries. From 2010 to 2015, she was a principal dancer and soloist with Cirque du Soleil's Dralion, performing 1,500 shows on five continents and serving as an assistant to the director and Pilates instructor. In 2015, she made history as the first Westerner to perform with Lola, the National Dance Company of Tajikistan. She is also a founding participant of the Tajik Dance Initiative NGO. A Fulbright scholar of dance, Pandeya holds an MA in Dance Anthropology from London's Roehampton University and a BA from Saint Mary's College. She currently teaches as an adjunct professor at Dominican University of California and Saint Mary's College. Her scholarly work includes researching the relationship between Central Asian dances and North Indian classical Kathak, for which she received an Asian Cultural Council grant. She has guest lectured at prestigious institutions such as Cambridge, SOAS, Stanford, and Panama Universities. Pandeya has received numerous accolades, including a Rockefeller Foundation-Funded Asian Cultural Council Individual Artist grant, a CECArtslink residency fellowship, and an Isadora Duncan Dance Award nomination for 'Most outstanding individual artist of the year'. Her choreographic projects, such as "Raqsistan," have been featured in the New York Times, on BBC, and in 'Dance Magazine'. While her early training included Indian classical dance, her primary specialization and renown are in Central Asian dance traditions, which she actively promotes through performance, research, and teaching. Awards & Honours: Asian Cultural Council Individual Artist grant, CECArtslink residency fellowship, Selected master artist for the apprenticeship program, CHIME (Choreographers Mentorship Exchange) grant, Rauschenberg Foundation individual artist grant, Creative Work Fund grants, Isadora Duncan Dance Award nomination, Christensen Foundation funded dance work, Prize at Berlin's 'Forecast' Festival for 'Raqsistan' (2017), Fulbright Scholar, Merit for creative work, Merit for creative work, Merit for creative work.