The Menaka Thakkar Legacy

Menaka Thakkar is a master dancer in three classical Indian styles – Bharatanatyam, Odissi and Kuchipudi. Now in her 65th year, Ms. Thakkar settled in Canada over 35 years ago at the peak of her career as an international soloist. She is credited (along with Kathak dancer, Rina Singha) as having been the first artist to introduce Indian culture to Canadian audiences.

In the early years Ms. Thakkar performed across Canada and soon began to train youngsters in classical bharatanatyam. Eventually she began creating original choreographies that were performed in major venues across Canada. She opened the first school of Indian dance in Canada, Nrytakala, which continues to train new generations of dancers and formed the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company comprised of graduates of her school.

The Menaka Thakkar Dance Company became the first South Asian arts organization to be recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts thereby opening the door to other multicultural artists to receive funding. Today the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company, known as MTDC is Canada’s premiere Indian dance company. It includes up to 20 professional dancers who have each studied with Ms. Thakkar from 16 to 26 years.

Ms. Thakkar has won many awards and honours in her long career including an honourary doctorate from York University, 2006 City of Toronto Face the Arts Cultural Maverick Award for Dance, Toronto Arts Award for Performing Arts, President’s Award from Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce and Tri-National Creative Residency Award from the Canada-Mexico joint program administered by the National Endowment for the Arts, USA.

Ms. Thakkar has created groundbreaking choreographies since coming to Canada which reflect both her exposure to western dance styles and her background in classical Indian dance. She has collaborated with many of Canada’s most accomplished dancers including Claudia Moore, Danny Grossman, William Lau, Robert Desrosiers, Patrick Parson, Debbie Wilson and Grant Strate to create possibly some of the first fusion pieces in Canada and group choreographies for Indian dancers. In addition, Ms. Thakkar has also reached out to students of ballet at the National Ballet School through an annual residency in which she has trained ballet students in classical bharatnatyam for the past 20 years.

Today the legacy continues with the formation of the new wing of MTDC for contemporary Indian dance which nurtures young professionals in creating choreography and provides opportunities to work with company dancers. Ms. Thakkar’s school, Nrytakala, located in Thornhill, Ontario trains over 100 students from ages 5 to 18 years old annually and has graduated close to 150 students in their junior and senior arangetrams. Many of the graduates have gone on to develop their own dance companies and solo careers in dance such as Winnipeg’s Manohar Dance Company, Natasha Bakht, Niharika Mohanty, and Nova Bhattacharya.

MTDC has recently developed a new wing for young audiences and performs shows in theatres and schools in Ontario and British Columbia annually. The Menaka Thakkar Dance Company continues to present an annual home season in Toronto and tours nationally every year. The MTDC dancers are rigorously trained and continuously provided with professional development training in body conditioning and with special choreo-labs in other kinds of dance styles to increase their versatility as dancers. Menaka Thakkar continues to oversee the company and school’s operations as the Artistic Director and continues to develop uncompromising choreographies which consistently break new ground and change the face of Indian dance in Canada.
 

Awards and Honours and Other Distinctions

Education

• Honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt) degree from York University, 1993
• Three year scholarship from Bharat Sangeet Sabha, Bombay, India for advanced
  studies in dance, 1970-1972
• Adjunct Professorship of Dance, York University, since 1993
• Annual Residency with National Ballet School

Film

Several films and videos such as:

• South Asian Success Stories: OMNI TV series with Angie Seth, 2005
• Success Story, CTV. May 2002
• Prime Time News Documentary, CBC. 1993
• Vision TV, 1991
• University of Cambridge, England. 1982
• Vancouver School Board: “Menaka and Animals”, 1982
• York University, Theatre Department, 1974
• Doordarshan TV, Bombay, India. 1969 and 1975

Milestones

• Founder of the first and oldest Indian dance company in Canada
• Founder of the first and oldest school of Indian dance in Canada
• Biographical entry in the Encyclopedia of Canadian Dance, Since 1997
• First South East Asian recipient of operational funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, 1993
• First South East Asian arts organization to receive operational funding from the
  Canada Council for the Arts

Awards and Honours

• 2006 City of Toronto Face the Arts Cultural Maverick Award for Dance
• Times of India – The World’s Hottest Dancers, 2005
• My Bindi Award for the Most Favourite Dance Company, 2003
• “Life Time Achievement Award” by Magic Feet, representing the voice of South Asian Youth, Toronto, August 2001
• “Toronto Arts Award” for Performing Arts, from “Arts Toronto”, 2000
• President’s Award from Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, Toronto, 1998
• 1998 Tri-National Creative Residency Award from the Canada-Mexico joint programme administered by the National Endowment for the Arts, USA
• Nomination for Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prize, 1996
• Nomination for Dora Mavor Moore Award for Choreography, 1993
• Choreographic Lab Award from Le Group de la Place Royale, Ottawa, 1992
• Award of Alternative Grant for Choreography from Canada Council, 1992
• Singar Mani Award, Bombay, India for excellence in Odissi, 1970
• Singar Mani Award, Bombay, India for excellence in Bharatanatyam, 1968
• A large number of grants and individual choreography awards from Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Japan-Canada Funds, Ministry of External Affairs, Secretary of State Multiculturalism, Laidlaw Foundation, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Government of India
• Appreciation and honours from Indian organizations Bharatiya Kala Manaram and Orissa Society of America
   

Reviews and Accolades

Menaka Thakkar has been in the business for much longer than Kwan and it showed in the exquisite pacing and stagecraft of the thirty-two-minute tour de force “Shapes and Rhythms”. With a large ensemble cast of well-trained performers, Thakkar kept the visual pleasure coming with thrilling moments of full-tilt stage crossings with stamping feet contrasted slow movement that showed off the beauty of some of the classical poses. Solid and very entertaining, in many ways, “Shapes and Rhythms” was the strongest of a strong grouping by virtue of Thakkar and company’s disciplined and well-honed chops.

- Kathleen M. Smith – Dance Current
2006 Review of Toronto International Dance Festival

 

Operational funding was given first to Menaka Thakkar as a solo artist in 1993 by the Canada Council for the Arts, and was later extended to her company. This clearly marked the ascension of Indian dance to a new level in Canada. The recognition of Indian dance as a bona fide system, and the increase in public support for the form due to the efforts of Thakkar, point to the invaluable contribution of this unique individual .

– The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2005

“Thakkar's choreography is a consummate expression of the bharatanatyam form and much more. Her unique juxtapositions of adavus (steps), sparkling jethis (groups of steps), intricate thirmanams (sequences of jethis) and grandly executed aridis (endings of rhythmic phrases) are mind boggling even to someone who has spent years studying the form.”

- Nova Bhattacharya, The Dance Current, 2005

“Menaka Thakkar is the doyenne of classical Indian dance who practically single-handedly brought Bharatanatyam to the mainstream.”

–The Globe and Mail, 2005

“Thakkar is one of the few South Asian classical dancers who is a master of more than one South Asian dance style. The most important impression one came away with from this concert was the bevy of winsome young South Asian women who are accomplished Bharatanatyam dancers. The second thought was just how adventurous Thakkar has been in fusing Eastern and Western art forms to create a new Canadian multicultural dance hybrid. One also has to admire her skill in transforming a solo dance genre into formidable group works. Thakkar’s Banyan tree has been significant indeed in Canada’s further soil”

Paula Citron in Dance International, 2002
 

“As a founder of the first classical Indian dance company n Canada, Thakkar has created a body of work that showcases the virtuosity of classical tradition. Believing that no individual dance form has used the body to its fullest possibilities in creating g movement, her work explores the underlying connections between different dance systems in terms of common human anatomy.”

Nova Bhattacharya in The Dance Current, 2002
 

“Menaka Thakkar, paragon of the classical Indian Bharatanatyam and Odissi styles, is a rare jewl in the richly encrusted crown of Toronto’s dance community, and it is always a privilege and an enlightenment to see her perform… It’s a splendid moment from a grand epic, and Thakkar’s faultless blend of emotional intensity and joys of classical Indian dance is the great performer’s ability to represent two characters at once. Here, for instance, when Karna forgive and acknowledges his mother, asking her to place her right hand on his forehead, Thakkar shows us in the same trembling, tentative, rapturous, movements the pain and joy of both mother and son. This is the pinnacle of nritya, of expressive art. If I had not had to write a review, I would have left then. : Thakkar is an impossible act to follow, and one is left yearning for a full evening of such vignettes”

Penelope Reed Doob in the Globe and Mail, 1981

“When something exceeds your expectations its always exciting, you know it is going to have integrity and worth and be well thought out and visually very attractive, I mean Menaka is not capable of coming up withy anything else. But I was profoundly moved. I found it almost hypnotic. It is a woman’s liberation story that is 3000 years old. I found it completely moving… It was completely accessible and it showed you could take this wonderful ancient tradition of Indian dance drama and make it absolutely relevant or today’s audiences.

Dance in Review by Paula Citron (reviewing SITAYANA)
on Classical 96 and 103 FM, 1994

“Menaka Thakkar is the most outstanding student in the purest style and tradition unsullied by any modern innovations… Menaka Thakkar has kept in purity the structure of Bharatanatyam, which many female dancers in India have lost or seem to have forgotten. In classical ballet or Spanish dance, or modern dance, you can learn steps by working hard for three, four, or five years. To get the inner meaning, the inner phrasing of footwork, expressions, gestures – that inner spiritual grasp, where one is with God in the dance – is a different matter and it is this which Guru Kitappa Pillai has imparted to marvelous Menaka. There is such a perfection of technique, restraint, purity and simplicity in her dancing. Here in Toronto, Canada one sees this art in its highest form performed by one of the great dancers, in its pure tradition”

RAM GOPAL (the legendary Indian dancer of the 20th century), 1984

“What is the secret of Menaka’s extraordinary performing ability? After much thought I have come to believe that what touches us so profoundly is the fact that she dances from the centre of her being. This is no empty phrase. One can almost see and get a tactile sensation of the line of energy flow as it rises from the central seat of physical energy in all her movements. One sense and feels almost physically the presence of a tremendous dynamism which is controlled and in-held. The same is true of her expressiveness of emotions, which arise from an inner center with clarity and intensity that is all the more intense because it does not explode into the overly dramatic.”

Petre Bodeut (acclaimed choreographer and Artistic Director, Regina)