Tanusree Shankar Biography 
Tanusree Shankar is a veteran contemporary dancer and choreographer based in Kolkata. She served as the leading dancer of Ananda Shankar Centre for Performing Arts in the 1970s and 1980s. She belongs to a legendary family of artists and contemporary dancers. Her husband Ananda Shankar was a world famous music composer known for his experiments with fusion music. She is the daughter-in-law of famous contemporary dancing duo of the 20th century, Pandit Uday Shankar & Amala Shankar. Famous Bengali actress Mamata Shankar is her sister-in-law. Her husband was the nephew of world famous sitar maestro Ravi Shankar.
Tanusree Shankar was born in 16 March 1956 in Kolkata. She became fully active with contemporary dance forms after her marriage with Ananda Shankar. In fact she continued the legacy of her in-laws, and excelled in that field. She established herself as a lead dancer with the Ananda Shankar Centre for Performing Arts in the 1970s and performed as a lead dancer in the 1980s as well. Currently Tanusree Shankar leads the Tanusree Shankar Dance Company, which has performed across the globe. Padmavati is one among her best works as a choreographer, and it was well received in many foreign cities including Paris.
She is a recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Dance - Creative Dance / Choreography. Tanusree has appeared in one movie, The Namesake. She is trained in Kathakali and she loves the power of that form and the masculinity. She often incorporates Kathakali to her choreographed pieces. Tanusree was also not a formally trained dancer before her marriage. Like Uday Shankar who is not a trained dancer, she takes enough freedom to choreograph different art pieces. Though a lot of poses in her compositions resemble Odissi or Bharatnatyam they are not really authentic poses.
Published: N/A
Updated: July 09, 2016
