Speakers Ananda Shankar Jayant: Dancer and choreographer

Ananda Shankar Jayant

With precision and sparkling grace, Ananda Shankar Jayant performs and teaches the classical dance styles of Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi.

Why you should listen to her:

Ananda Shankar Jayant is trained in two traditional forms of classical Indian dance, Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi. Both forms require long training and precise timing to express their essence -- and both forms, in Shankar Jayant's hands, are capable of exploring deep truths.

As a choreographer and performer, she uses dance to talk about gender issues (as in 1999's What About Me?), mythology and philosophy, setting these carefully handed-down forms of dance onto a modern stage. She leads the Shankarananda Kalakshetra school in Hyderabad and Secunderabad, and is a scholar of dance and art, lecturing frequently on both throughout India.

"My language called dance paints before you a canvas of life and beyond -- of our fallible self groping in the darkness for that light of eternity."
Ananda Shankar Jayant

Email to a friend »

Quotes by Ananda Shankar Jayant

  • “Cancer’s only one page in my life, and I will not allow this page to impact the rest of my life.”

    Watch this talk »

  • “How do you keep cheer when you go from beautiful to bald in three days?”

    Watch this talk »

  • “I danced through chemo and radiation cycles.”

    Watch this talk »

More TEDQuotes…

Ananda Shankar Jayant fights cancer with dance

Ananda Shankar Jayant on the Web

Related Speakers

Conferences

  • TEDIndia 2009