Dancing the Gods 2025: Night One - Mythili Prakash

Our annual Dancing the Gods festival of Indian Dance proudly marks its 14th and final year, once again showcasing some of the top performers in Indian dance, expertly curated by the festival’s founder, Rajika Puri.

Each evening’s performance will be preceded by a special presentation honoring Rajika and her visionary leadership and dedication to the festival throughout the years. Please join us as we express our immense appreciation to Rajika for her vital contributions to the festival’s longstanding success as well as to the broader cultural landscape of New York City.

This evening’s presentation is a re-imagining of Mythili’s 2015 original production of Jwala.

Mythili Prakash’s innovative vision as a choreographer, combined with her powerful conviction as a performer, distinguishes her as one of the most respected young Bharatanatyam artists today. Her work is unique – while rooted in the intricate and nuanced language of Bharatanatyam, it confronts the socio-political global world we live in today. Mythili is incisive in her approach, questioning cultural and social norms, while pushing the boundaries of her practice of the art form, particularly around femininity and aesthetics. Her creative introspections acknowledge and draw fodder from her experiences as a mother and a first-generation child of immigrants, as well as the complexity of her identity as a dancer of caste privilege in India, while simultaneously a female artist of color in the US.

She has toured her own solo productions throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, India, and Singapore, and had the honor of working with director Ang Lee in the award-winning film Life of Pi, cast as the wife of the title character. In 2019, Mythili was nominated by celebrated dancer/choreographer Akram Khan as “Choreographer of the Future” for UK-based Dance Umbrella’s Four by Four Commissions, premiering her solo work HERE and NOW at their festival that year.

Mythili is a recipient of the “Creation to Performance” grant from the Irvine Dance Foundation and “Artistic Innovation” grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation. She has received numerous accolades from premiere institutions of dance and music in India as well. In 2021, she received the National Dance Project touring grant from NEFA for She’s Auspicious, which premiered in Hamburg at the Reflektor Festival, curated by  Anoushka Shankar.

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