Kiruthika Rathanaswami

About

Kiruthika Rathanaswami is the New Artistic Director of Mandala Arts & Culture Society. She has been under the guidance and mentorship of Jai Govinda, Founder and past Artistic Director of Mandala Arts & Culture Society in Vancouver for over 30 years. She completed her bharata natyam arangetram (graduation) at the Jai Govinda Dance Academy in 2004 and since then has been a part of many of Mandala's professional productions and presentations as a soloist, and ensemble. She was also a Company Dancer (2019-2022) and Associate Artist (2022-2024) for Nova Dance (Toronto). As a soloist she has performed extensively in Vancouver, BC and other cities such as Edmonton, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Seattle, Santa Barbara, California and Baltimore, Maryland. Kiruthika premiered three new bharata Natyam margams in 2019 (Vancouver/Edmonton), 2015 (Vancouver) and 2013 (Vancouver) choreographed by Jai Govinda, Gurus B. Bhanumati, Sheela Chandrashekar and Bragha Bessell. She has also danced in other company works such as Nova Dance's Svāhā that premiered in Toronto (September 2022) and Vancouver (July 2023), Sujit Vaidya's Breath in the Fragrance (2023&2025) and Shakti Dance/Anusha Fernando's Sky Dancers (2024). Kiruthika most recently premiered her new production Shiva (He) - Shakti (Her) with co-dancer Malavika Santhosh and choreographed by Jai Govinda in December 2024 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. As a choreographer she has co-lead Nova Dance’s Svāhā Body Choir in Vancouver (2023) and worked with Dance Xtreme Students from Victoria High School in Edmonton to choreograph a work titled “Linked Expressions” for Nextfest (2020) curated by Good Women Dance Collective. Kiruthika has taught group and private classes for workshops, festivals and schools/institutions such as Mandala Arts, Nova Dance’s Svāhā Body Choir Vancouver Rehearsal Lead, Sattvika Danse (Montreal), HH11 Dance Festival Master Class Series (University of California, Santa Barbarba), Annual Grande Prairie Children’s Festival (Grande Prairie) and SFU Dance Department (Vancouver). In 2010 she received the Arts Fellowship from the Shastri Indo- Canadian Institute and trained with Gurus B. Bhanumati and Sheela Chandrashekar of Nrityakalamandiram in Bangalore, India. She was also featured as the lead dancer in the documentary film "The Great Night of Shiva" (2011) which was broadcast nationally on Vision TV, Canada. In the summer of 2015, Kiruthika was invited to speak as panelist at a National Dance Symposium "Beyond Boundaries - Imagining a New Future for South Asian Dance in Canada" by Sampradaya Dance Creations in Mississauga, Ontario. Kiruthika is the recipient of the 2012 City of Vancouver "The Mayor's Arts Award" for emerging artist in Dance and the 2016 Dancing Damsel Women Achiever Award for the Performing Arts. Kiruthika continues to learn and expand her bharata natyam vocabulary through residences and workshops such as Nova Dance Svaha Creation Lab (2023/2019) and Deep End Week (2019), Samparada Dance Creations Dance Intense (2009, 2010, 2011), and Master Abhinaya Classes with Mrs. Bragha Bessell (2017-2022).

Skills & Expertise