Chitresh Das Biography 
Chitresh Das is a famous Indian Kathak dancer from Kolkata. He is also known as a choreographer, composer, and educator. He was instrumental in bringing Kathak to the U.S and popularizing it there. He established the Chhandam School of Kathak and the Chitresh Das Dance Company in California in the year 1979. In 2002, he founded Chhandam Nritya Bharati in India and now owns more than 10 branches in different parts of the country. Kathak Yoga is his innovation and he is popular with his virtuosic footwork, rhythmic adeptness and compelling storytelling.
He was born in Kolkata on November 9, 1944 to Nrityacharya Prohlad Das and Nilima Das, founders of “Nritya Bharati”, one of the earliest Indian institutions to teach classical and folk dance items. Prohlad Das was a dancer and choreographer who staged his revolutionary work “Abhyudaya” before Indian Independence. Brought up in Kolkata, Pandit Das was surrounded by great literary artists, poets, dancers, and gurus of the times. Das began his study of Kathak at age 9 under Kathak guru, Pandit Ram Narayan Misra. He was encouraged by his mother a lot. He learnt two major traditions of Kathak and started performing at the age of 11. Das graduated from Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata and earned Master’s degree in dance from Prayag Sangit Samiti in Allahabad.
In the year 1970, he reached US as faculty of Kathak at University of Maryland. In 1971, Das was invited by Ustad Ali Akbar Khan to the San Francisco to teach Kathak and establish a dance program at the Ali Akbar College of Music in California. By 1979, he left the AACM faculty to form his own dance school called Chhandam. In 1988, Das formed the first university accredited Kathak course in the U.S. at San Francisco State University. Das has performed extensively throughout America, India and Europe as a solo artist as well as in collaborative productions. In 2009, Das was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor bestowed on a traditional artist by the U.S. Government.
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Updated: January 27, 2014
