This class is suitable for Odissi dance students with previous or no dance experience.
Registration is for the month or semester, not per class. If a student has to miss a class, there will be no refund or make-up class/es offered for the missed class/es. If Chhandayan has to cancel a class, a make-up class or refund options will be offered. Please click here for more details.
Dress Code: Casual, comfortable and decent.
Attendance: Regular attendance is crucial to a student’s progress. Any absence should be notified in advance.

Dr. Aparupa Chatterjee, is the artistic director of the Odissi Dance Company ensemble for over a decade. She trained under her guru Shri Ratikant and Sujata Mohapatra as a former ensemble dancer from ‘Srjan,’ Padmavibhushan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra's home institution, and she is a National Scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India.

Aparupa, a torchbearer of the Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra gharana in the US, has a PhD from Texas A&M University. Her service to the community centers on evolving dance pedagogy and instruction to create dancers suited for the current era, evolving strategies to cater to seniors and the underprivileged. Much of this work has been in an artistically underserved zone of the Dakotas as well.

She introduced Odissi to Austin, Texas in 2008. For community outreach, she founded the Int'l Institute for Culture and Performing Arts Development (IICPD) at Texas A&M University. She received a Bull grant, a Campus Climate Diversity grant, and an Association of Former Students grant to stage her choreographic works by her TAMU and UT Austin undergraduate and graduate students from 2010 through 2026.

Chatterjee, a recipient of fellowships from the Board of Regents, the North Dakota Council on the Arts and the NEA, has also curated the Kelucharan Guna Keertanam festival every year for 14 years. She staged her choreographic works, including 'Nach,' 'Vithala Smarane,' 'Gati,' 'Swagatham Krishna,' 'The Happy Prince,' and many others at Kalashraya DC, Carnegie Hall NY, Mumbai's Nalanda, Barbara Mann Florida, Narthaki Houston, Incredible India Texas, Erasing Borders NYC and several purely academic venues.

Additionally, Aparupa, a prime feature on USA's ABC's "Dancing with the Stars," has received Sur Sansad Mumbai's Singar Mani, the Padmavati Pratibha Samman, AIARD Fellowship, Howard Buffet fellowship for International Development, and Indian Raga's Senior Fellowship at MIT.

Chatterjee also performed and served as an ambassador for Odissi for 'Tarang' - a 3D movie on Aparupa's Odissi dance. The film won Best 3D Film at the Los Angeles Disney Film Festival and was featured at the Beyond Festival in Karlsruhe, Germany; the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen, Germany, and the KIF Festival in Seoul, South Korea.

Chatterjee presented "the most successful and charmingly communicative number…" (The New York Times).

Aparupa Chatterjee

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