Janaki Patrik is a pioneering American cross-cultural choreographer and performer. She was trained in classical North Indian Kathak dance, American modern dance, and western flute by three internationally renowned artists: Pandit Birju Maharaj at Kathak Kendra, new Delhi starting in 1967; Merce Cunningham and his company members at the Merce Cunningham Studio, modern dance and repertoire 1971-1978; and Donald Peck, first chair flute of the Chicago Symphony, private coaching in 1960-1962 after eleven years of flute training and performances starting in early childhood.
Janaki's eclectic mix of music and dance training, plus her knowledge of Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu, and Russian languages and literatures, have inspired her choreography and its musical accompaniment. She has choreographed and directed over 40 evening-length productions since founding her company, The Kathak Ensemble & Friends/CARAVAN, Inc. in 1978. Included are many classical Kathak productions, as well as the very popular KA-TAP, created from the shared improvisatory underpinnings of Kathak and Tap dance. Other productions have illuminated topics and texts as diverse as MANDALA X, based on the Rig Veda's X.129 NASADIYA SUKTA/Hymn of Creation; BOLLYWOOD GOES CLASSICAL, Kathak dance responses to music and lyrics of popular Bollywood songs, PREMIKA/Women in Love, reframing the classical ashta nayika archetype, by following a contemporary Indian woman through the stages of infatuation, marriage, breakup, and reunion, as expressed in poetry and music from the Lucknow Kathak repertoire; and WE SINFUL WOMEN, dramatizing a selection of Contemporary Urdu Poetry by Pakistani Feminist poets including Fahmida Riaz and Kishwar Naheed.
