Medha Yodh

Medha Yodh

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Category: Art

Medha Yodh Profile

  • Name:
  • Medha Yodh
  • Born:
  • July 31, 1927
  • Died:
  • July 11, 2007

Medha Yodh Biography

Medha Yodh was an Indian American Bharatnatyam dancer and worked as a faculty at UCLA. She was a disciple of Tanjore Balasaraswati who later created a documentary on Garba-Ras: A Glimpse Into Gujarati Culture, focused on the Garba, a traditional Gujarati dance.

 

Medha Yodh was born on July 31, 1927 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. She started studying dance at a young age of only 5. She got fascinated with south Indian art form – Bharatnatyam at a young age. Yet her education's was heavily focused on science and completed graduation from University of Bombay. She completed her master's from Stanford University in California. Though she was not born in a Brahmin or art family and concentrated on to science as academic studies, she returned to her passion – dance form. During her young days, she travelled outside India and gathered information about several art forms. In one such travel, she met her future husband, Carol von Essen, a Swedish medical student. They got married, but divorced later.

 

In 1976, she became a faculty of art institution, UCLA where she taught Balasaraswati's values and dance styles. She served the post for about two decades and retired in 1994. Yet she continued as an advisor of the same institution. In 1987, she made a documentary film on Garba, a traditional dance form of Gujarat. It was titled, Garba-Ras: A Glimpse Into Gujarati Culture, and regarded a significant contribution of this artist. After retirement, she conducted stage shows in California. She took private tuitions for a short while before she moved from Oakland to San Diego, California. She died on July 11, 2007 at San Deigo aged 79. Her son, Eric von Essen was a jazz bassist who died in 1997.

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Updated: January 23, 2014

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