Staff

Artistic Director
​Kasi Aysola is a dance artist who is making his mark in the United States. He Co-founded Prakriti dance with Madhvi Venkatesh in 2014. Currently he serves as the Artistic Director of the company.

Kasi is a performer, choreographer and nattuvangam artist whose foundational training in Bharata Natyam was under celebrated Guru Viji Prakash and Mythili Prakash. He had the great fortune to train in Kuchipudi under late Guru Vempati Ravi Shankar and Yamini Saripalli.

He has been privileged to study and work with leading exponents of Indian dance and has performed solo and group work in the US, India and abroad. As a nattuvangum artist (vocal percussion) he has accompanied many artists in live performances. He has received recognition and funding from various organizations. 
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Marketing Lead
Archana Raja is a Bharathanatyam & Kuchipudi practitioner, teacher & choreographer based in the Bay Area. Her dance emanated from a rigorous foundation of traditional learning, received from the age of 5 from eminent Guru, Sheela Unnikrishnan, Director of Sridevi Nrithyalaya. She has traveled extensively to perform in major dance festivals in Dubai, Ireland, California, Oman & New York. She comes from decades of experience as a soloist and her prowess in technique and presentation has given her the opportunity to work with choreographers like Dr.Anita Ratnam and Padmashri Shobana. Currently, she trains in Kuchipudi with Kasi Aysola in the Vempati Bani and Bharathanatyam with Renjith Babu & Vijna Vasudevan.

Some of her notable solo and group performances are dance feature film with  Navatman Dance (NYC), Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival with Prakriti Dance, Nishagandhi Festival (India). Archana is currently working on solo works that take influences from disparate genres of music and storytelling into the fabric of Indian dance. While staying true to her art form, she intends to connect to a diverse audience through her work. ​

Programming & Outreach Lead
Madhuvanthi Sundararajan is a dancer, choreographer and teacher trained in Bharatanatyam. With more than two decades of study in the art form, she holds a Master’s degree and is a gold medalist from Savitribai Phule Pune University, India. For the past 12 years she’s been under the guidance of Dr. Parimal Phadke. She is now training in Kuchipudi under the guidance of Kasi Aysola and completed her Rangapravesam in Jan 2024.

She has performed at many festivals and venues in India such as, Parthasarathy Swami Sabha, Chennai and the USA, including the Jacob’s Pillow 90th Anniversary Dance Festival. 

She is working as the programming and outreach lead for Prakriti Dance and a board member at Indian Dance Educators’ Association. 

She recently presented ‘Kayakalpam’, a self-produced solo performance talking about the journey of rejuvenation through dance. She created her first dance short film ‘Medusa’ as part of the EPIC WOMEN commission by Narthaki.com.
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Madhuvanthi has been working as a dance instructor for a decade, teaching students in India, USA and abroad, in person and virtually. With a Bachelor’s degree in Photography, she also experiments with dance portraiture.

Photo Credits: Jaime Kraus; courtesy of Jacob's Pillow, Iyappan, Rishi Raj

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