“The prime focus of every work is to create a space for the audience to feel hope or release of negative energy so that they can take what they see through the work whether created as a serious work or work filled with absurd hilarity that can give them a thread to create a ripple of positivity for others.”

Shalaka Kulkarni’s work revolves around the ideas of female identity, questioning societal norms, celebrating gender fluidity, empowering marginal voices and narrating lost stories of female contribution within Indian culture. She is interested in creating and presenting a hybrid movement form that fuses techniques of Bharatnatyam and Kathak with other movement influences, text and technology.

Shalaka’s movement journey started as a child in India with dance and martial art. Her choreography includes traditional technique of Indian Classical dance forms while delivering a contemporary narrative or an idea that is based within current happenings in the society. She has studied with Sandhya Desai (Kathak), Pranita Nayar (Bharatnatyam), and Nana Shineflug (Modern dance). She holds an MFA in Arts and Media and a BA in Performing Art Management, minoring in Theatre, from Columbia College Chicago. She deepened her knowledge of anatomy and movement with a RYT-200 Yoga instructor certification.

Shalaka has performed in India, across the US, and most recently, Germany and Austria and has been recognized for her work as a choreographer and performer by several institutions including Dance Chicago Festival, DanceBridge, Columbia College Chicago, and SloMoCo. She founded a collective called ‘SurTaal’ (inactive currently) for exploring Indian Classical dance forms through perspective of other dance forms. Most recently, she completed a SloMoCo (MoCo- Movement and computing community) Summer and Fall 2021 Residencies. She is a current artist in residence with Mandala South Asian Performing Arts, High Concept Labs, See Chicago Dance, and a guest choreographer for Momenta Dance Company. Along with her work as an independent dancemaker, she is a producer for Dancing Chakras, which celebrates a range of performance arts set to Bollywood music.

See Shalaka perform at the Artist Showcase on Friday, June 24th at Indian Boundary Park Cultural Center during an evening of contemporary dance and music performance.

And…On June 16 & 20, Shalaka joins us at Warren Park and Green Briar Park for an interactive performance: Parables in the Park! Music and dance bring together stories from across cultures, for all!

REGISTER