Rhythm & Gestures
All Levels Collaborative Classes and Workshops
Rhythm & Gestures is a community offering for dancers of all levels. Artists from different disciplines, styles, or cultures come together to hold a collaborative class focusing on technique, music, and narrative building, in hopes of adding to your creative process and finding new ways to move!
Rhythm & Gestures classes are generously subsidized by our facilitators or organizational grant support.
Rhythm & Gestures: An All Levels Bharatanatyam Class (Berkeley)
1 hour 30 minutes @ $21
Every Monday starting August 18th from 7:30 - 9:00 pm
@ Shawl Anderson Dance Center - 2704 Alcatraz Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705.
We begin with a warm up, fundamental adavus or foundational steps, learn a routine to popular music, and also do some abhinaya work rooted in gesture and improvisational storytelling. While some Indian dance experience would help, you do NOT need to be familiar with Indian forms to attend!
Please note, these classes are being facilitated by Shawl Anderson Dance Center.
B*nat Mixtape Series
2 hours
Saturday, October 10, 2026 1:45-3:45pm
@ Smuin Dance SF
Join us for this special workshop of movement, rhythm, and live music with guest artists Sindhu Natarajan and Aditya Iswara! This is an all-levels adult dance workshop in San Francisco. 💃🏽🕺🏽🙆🏽♀️
The class structure is rooted in bharatanatyam framework, and we play with bharatanatyam, live music, and structured improvisation with all sorts of musical prompts. It’s my very own mixtape!
I am praying I am not the only one who remembers what a mixtape is. 😅
You’ll walk away with -
1) ways to develop your own way of storytelling
2) ways to center intention and story in abstract movement
3) skills to develop your own movement intuition to various musical prompts
4) technical guidance on how to feel your own movement more deeply.
And most of all you’ll be really happy that you moved to live music 🎶
ABOUT THE MUSICIANS:
Sindhu Natarajan is a vocalist and composer, who hails from a distinguished musical lineage. She began her formal training in Carnatic music under the tutelage of her aunts, Vasanthi Kannan and Raji Gopalakrishnan, and her grandfather, P.V. Natarajan. Over the past fifteen years, Sindhu has enthralled Bay Area audiences with her captivating vocal performances. Beyond her solo endeavors, she has collaborated with prominent South Asian dance companies and choreographers nationwide. Sindhu is also a prolific independent composer, passionately creating music that seamlessly blends the intricate nuances of Carnatic music with contemporary genres. She currently lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two daughters.
Aditya Iswara is trained in Mridangam, Carnatic Music and Bharatanatyam with an abundant sense of rhythm. He is a disciple of Sri Poovalur Sriji, for Mridangam and Kanjira, Sri Vittal Ramamurthy for Carnatic Violin, and a disciple of his mother, Smt. Vani Iswara for Bharatanatyam. Aditya has been a regular performer as an accompanist for both music and dance across the country. He graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelors and a Masters in Computer Science and is working as a software engineer at a silicon valley startup company.