Neena Prasad Biography 
Neena Prasad is a successful and popular Mohiniyattam dancer from Kerala. It’s a traditional dance form of Kerala. She also learnt Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi and Kathakali and regularly performs these dance forms on stage. She is trained in Kathakali for more than 10 years from Vembayam Appukuttan Pillai, in Kuchipudi for 12 years from Vempatti China Satyam, in Bharatanatyam from Adyar K. Lakshman for 11 years, Mohiniyattam from Kalamandalam Kshemavathy for 3 years and Kalamandalam Sugandhi for 8 years. Thus she has been lucky enough to learn different dance forms from some of the great legends from south India, and she took training for long years to achieve a position where she is right now.
Neena Prasad hails from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. She is one of the most sought after Mohiniyattam dancers among the present generation. Her distinctive style and approach helped her to create a niche of her own in the field of Mohiniyattam. She was invited to perform at Soorya in 1998. Since then she started choreographing her own pieces. Her work was well received too. Since then she got opportunities to perform at prime stages in Chennai and other cities. She has also studied Mridangam.
She founded two dance schools - Bharthanjali Academy of Indian Dances in Thiruvanthapuram and Sougandika Centre for Mohiniyattam in Chennai, and serves as head of both. She trained in both the schools of Mohiniyattam, and even the basic adavus in them were highly contradicting. She takes liberty to switch between the two styles during her own performances. Yet she does a lot of research works while designing its dance moves. She made a vocabulary that has 116 adavus and 18 charis spread across 17 strategically categorized groups with the help of her teacher and mentor Kalamandalam Sugandhi. Currently she is planning to document them.
Published: September 08, 2018
Updated: September 08, 2018
