Sudha Thakkar Khandwani, Artistic Director
 

Sudha Khandwani is the founder and Artistic Director of Kalanidhi Fine Arts of Canada. She also served for a few years, as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Ballet School, CanAsian Festival and Rasik Arts, and was the co-director of Ababeel Arts and Ababeel Film Society of Toronto. She is a versatile artist whose deep involvement in the fields of Indian dance, theatre, acting, choreography, photography and film span a period of 60 years.

She began her acclaimed 20-year performing career as a dancer in 1943 and in theatre in 1953, both of which continued until 1965. In 1951, she was appointed Director of Dance and Drama at R.D.National College, University of Bombay. Two years later she founded Kalanidhi in 1953, her own institute of fine arts. At the institute, she taught Bharatanatyam, choreographed and directed dance dramas, and experimented with ancient concepts of ’total theatre’ applied to the modern stage. Sudha explored many innovations, which characterize today’s new directions of development in Indian dance. Kalanidhi soon became a highly respected centre for education in India’s classical dance forms and the presentation of new choreographic works.In the ten-year period 1955–1965, Sudha choreographed ten dance dramas ranging from classical themes such as Uma based upon Kalidas’ Kumar Sambhavam and Amar Geet based upon the life and work of Jayadeva, the author of Geet-Govinda, to modern themes such as Chitra of Tagore and Maharashtra Darshan of the contemporary Marathi poet Vasant Bapat.

Her intense activity in performing, acting and choreography came to a sudden halt in 1965 when she sustained a serious arm injury. She was then looking for another outlet for her creative energy. She began her collaboration with photographer and filmmaker Abdullah Khandwani. Sudha continued to function as the artistic director of Kalanidhi, but now expanded its goals, and jointly with Abdullah developed a new organization for visual arts called Ababeel. They toured India, photographing all aspects of tribal, folk and classical art and culture and produced many photographic and audio-visual presentations, and short films which remain in permanent collections: India of My Dreams, at Gandhi Museum, New Delhi; Crafts and Craftsmen, at Crafts Museum Bhopal; and The Land and Its People, with Gujarat Government, Ahmedabad.

In 1971, the Khandwanis settled in Canada and continued their involvement in the arts. Establishing Ababeel in Toronto, their emphasis shifted to themes which evoked an understanding and sharing of art by Canadians of ethnically diverse backgrounds. They traveled across Canada to present their photographic exhibitions, multi-media presentations and videos, which have also become part of permanent collections: India Life and Art, at University of Toronto; Glimpses of Muslim in Canada, at Council of Muslim Communities of Canada; and The Muslim Presence in Ontario, with Islam West Associates. Sudha's many credits include several short films for CBC, the multi-media stage production “Indian Woman,” the documentary film: “A Tale of Two Mosques,” the photographic exhibition “Our Impressions” for the international conference on dance in Canada, and the multi-media audio-visual presentation “Three Faces of Indian Art” which premiered at the 40th anniversary celebration of India’s independence at York University and later toured across North America..

Sudha transplanted Kalanidhi to Canada in 1991 as Kalanidhi Fine Arts of Canada. Since then it has become a highly respected centre of Indian dance and culture. In the last 20 years she has worked with a strong focus on a wide range of Indian dance ranging from traditional classical styles to modern contemporary works. In 1993, Kalanidhi presented New Directions in Indian Dance, the first of what was to become twelve international Indian dance festivals and conferences on Indian dance. Since then she has nurtured emerging dance artists through her Navodaya– New Dawn festivals, supported the creative agendas of mid-career and senior dancers, brought the spell-binding artistry of the legendary traditional artists such as Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra who revived Odissi dance after British occupation and the original creativity of the world-renowned contemporary Indian choreographer, Chandralekha. Through the mini Kathak conference of 1999, the Bharatanatyam festival and symposium of 2002 and the Yuvakala festival and conference of 2003 which also featured a ten-day Toronto-Birmingham Choreographic Lab, she has taken her work a step closer to her final vision of balancing the magnificence of the tradition with the creativity of the contemporary works.

As part of celebrating the dawn of the new century she embarked upon an ambitious project that involved a retrospective of the last century of Indian dance. This has resulted in two major international dance festivals in 2004 and 2006 under the title A Century of Indian Dance, which included nearly 150 artists and 30 scholars from ten countries over a fifteen day period and presented all eight classical Indian dance styles in performance, discussion and analysis.

In 2009, Kalanidhi organized, in collaboration with Menaka Thakkar Dance Company, an international festival and symposium titled Contemporary Choreography in Indian Dance thereby starting a serious investigation in the development of contemporary forms of Indian dance within a framework that would also extend the explorations of common issues and connectivity with other culturally diverse dance forms. This investigation began with an intensive study of contemporary dance pioneer Chandralekha which included performances by Chandrekha Dance Company of India and an acquired Chandralekha work performance by Canada’s Menaka Thakkar Dance Company. In 2010 Kalanidhi continued the exploration of contemporary dance by presenting India’s foremost contemporary dance company Daksha Sheth. In March 2011 Kalanidhi presented the Contemporary Choreography in Indian Dance, Part 2 Festival and Symposium, Sudha’s thirteenth such event. The festival received rave reviews from Michael Crabbe in the Toronto Star and an interview with Paula Citron in the Globe and Mail that clearly showed these two knowledgeable dance critics admiration for the work of Sudha Khandwani.