About Sanjukta Wagh

 

Sanjukta Wagh is the co- founder of an interdisciplinary initiative called beej in Mumbai, which is engaged in exploring the creative process and improvisation, alternative methods of classical dance pedagogy and collaborative performance since the year 2005.

 

 

Performer, choreographer, educator and curator, Sanjukta Wagh has trained extensively under Rajashree Shirke in Kathak and Pandit Murli Manohar Shukla in Hindustani Music. Her engagement with theatre honed by playwright-director Chetan Datar and Navarasa sadhana training with G Venu, her year-long experience at the Trinity Laban school of Dance, London, her love of literature and deep unease with comfort zones, have led to her interdisciplinary and exploratory mode of work.

 

Her choreographies like Khayal geometries, Faqeer Nimaana, Jheeni, Rage and Beyond: Irawati's Gandhari, Bheetar Baahar, Ubha Vitewari, Putana And I among several others have won her applause across the country and abroad.

 

Her dance theatre work, Rage and Beyond: Irawati’s Gandhari won two National Theatre Awards at META, 2015. Sanjukta won the Best actress in lead role award and her musical collaborator Hitesh Dhutia won the award for best sound design.

 

Sanjukta has developed a unique language of dance theatre that uses the idiom of Kathak as the foundation to build on and draws from her experience of contemporary dance,  theatre and hindustani music leading to interdisciplinary work.

 

An M.A. in English literature, she has researched and created the text for several of her own productions. She has also composed music for her work.

 

Her research on improvisation as a studio based practice and as performance along with her exploration of dance as music and to live music has led to several one - on- one collaborations and experiments which she has been sharing in workshops for performing arts students around the country.

 

 Sanjukta has been the curator for dance at the Kala Ghoda festival in the year 2009, 2012, and 2013.

 

Sanjukta has been been honoured with several awards and scholarships including  the Vinod Doshi Award for significant work in performing arts,  Aditya Birla Kala Kiran Puruskar, Sur Singar Samsad’s Singar Mani, British Council’s Charles Wallace scholarship among others.