A dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, and commentator, Maya Kulkarni is a highly respected and well-known figure in the Indian dance world. Trained under Gurus Parvati Kumar, Jayalaxmi Alva, Dandaythpani Pillai, Kitappa Pillai and Kalanidhi Narayan, Maya has had an extensive repertoire and is deeply rooted in the classical dance genre. She won widespread praise for her flawless technique and story-telling abilities as a performer. Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times hailed her as the ‘Dancer’s Dancer”.
Maya has performed extensively in the US, Europe, and India and composed many of her own dance pieces. In the past decade, she had choreographed 24 new works ranging from 15- minute- to 45-minute productions in the newly developed Shilpanatanam form of dance. Among these, “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’’, “Medea’s Passion” and “Adventures of a Naughty Bee” stretch the boundariesof the classical forms to non-traditional themes and demonstrate the versatility and richness of the Shilpanatanam style. Maya’s Shilpanatanam repertoire also has pieces closer to the traditional forms. These include the “Ardhanari Natesha”, “Sayankale”, “yakshini”, “Impossible Romance”, and “The Woman with Parrot “,” The Huntress” and “The woman with the Mirror”. The Greek mythological pieces were shown to glowing notices first in 2019 athe ‘Drive East’ festival in New York City. ‘The Allegory of the Cave’ was presented at the Erasing Border festival in 2019. “The Adventures of a Naughty Bee” premiered atthe Erasing Border festival in 2021, while ‘Medea’s passion’ and ‘Impossible Romance’ were presented at the We are Dancing festival on 7th May 2022. ‘Kundalini Rising’ and “Kavacham” – two ensemble pieces premiered at the Battery Dance Festival in 2021. While a new piece Durga was commissioned and performed for the Queens Arts Council’s annual festival “Making Moves” on 23/24 September 2022. “Maya was a recipient of the Ohio Arts Council grant last year and a National Endowment for Arts grant this year. Each grant was for the creation of new dance pieces in collaboration with an Indian dance practitioner.