Shakti 

SHAKTI was born in 1957 in Kyoto, Japan to an Indian father and a Japanese mother. 

Her mother founded the VasantaMala Indian Dance Institute and was the first Japanese woman to introduce Indian dance into Japan.
Her father was a professor of English at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and was also the  founder and director of the Gandhi Institute in Kyoto.

SHAKTI ｇrew up with not only the rich cultural heritage of Japan but of India as well.
She studied yoga with her father and dance with her mother and with the foremost gurus of India.

While earning an M.A. in Indian Philosophy at Columbia University in New York City,  SHAKTI studied modern dance with Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey and jazz dance with Luigi.

Upon returning to Japan, she developed a unique hybrid form of dance blending an array of Eastern dance traditions and yoga with western contemporary dance resulting in an exotic, erotic, and shocking effect.

She has been performing worldwide to great critical acclaim. Her unique and mesmerising performances have touched and tantalised audiences everywhere.  She is called the "Dancing Phoenix" and the "Sculpture in Movement."

 

SHAKTI's dance style is often compared to the music of Philip Glass.  It is based on repetition which leads to a demonic climax.  Her dance is also very much physical theatre with plenty of facial expressions rather than abstract dance movement.  The body stance is lowered towards the ground as in the Indian tradition and Japanese martial arts and you will hear a lot of stamping custom to Bharata Natyam.  Darting eyes, quivering eyebrows, flicking tongue are all part of her dance. 

"Every part of the body is hell-bent on seduction" (The Times)

SHAKTI is also the artistic director of The Garage International which is now one of the most prominent venues in various festivals such as Avignon and Adelaide Fringe.
Shakti is also the founder and artistic director of the Tokyo Fringe Festival and Kyoto Fringe Festival.

 

She has been awarded the Kyoto Prefectural Government Cultural and Arts Medal of Honour.  Newsweek Japan has chosen her in the top 3 "Pioneers"  in "100 Japanese the World Respects".

There are no borders no boundaries for this universal artist.