Dance Company

Navatman Dance Company

Navatman Dance Company, led by artistic director Sahasra Sambamoorthi, is an Indian classical dance company based in New York City whose mission is to bring extraordinary, boundary-pushing productions to the stage, making Indian classical dance more accessible to understand and experience without removing the beauties of tradition and history that the style has developed from.

Meet our Dancers

Aparna Shankar
Principal Dancer

Aparna Shankar trained in the Vazhuvoor style of bharatanatyam under guru Smt. Ramya Ramnarayan in New Jersey for 11 years.

Since joining Navatman Dance Company in 2017, Aparna has performed along with the company at two Drive East festivals and played the role of Lakshmana in Navatman's Ramayana production and the role of Karna in Navatman's Mahabharata Part 1: Of Vengeance and Promises production. As a freelancer, Aparna performed as an ensemble member in The Affair, Sri Thina's production based off the Gita Govindam. Aparna finds immense joy in dance and deeply enjoys sharing and cultivating this joy in others.

Sahasra Sambamoorthi
Artistic Director & Principal Dancer

Sahasra Sambamoorthi's passion is to re-ignite the fire of the South Asian performing arts within the US. Trained in bharatanatyam by Smt Kalaimamani Ramya Ramnarayan, she has been called by reporters as a "young trailblazer...on the crest of the wave leading us towards a new understanding of South Asian arts in the United States." Co-Founder of Navatman, Inc and continues her studies under Prashant Shah (kathak) and Bijayini Satpathy (odissi) along with bharatanatyam under Ramya as and when possible.

Sri Thina Subramaniam
Principal Dancer

Sri Thina Subramaniam has danced Bharatanatyam and Odissi professionally as a soloist and collaborator for over 20 years. Her initial training was at the Temple of Fine Arts, an institution known for fostering various dance styles under one roof. Sri Thina has worked with international choreographers in the field. To name a few, Mavin Khoo, currently the rehearsal director at Akram Khan Company (UK) and Shobana Jeyasingh known for her creating enigmatic and dynamic dance work in the UK. Sri Thina has spent most of her professional career performing in Malaysia, Singapore, India, the United Kingdom and presently here in America. Her performance were in venues including the Lincoln Center(USA), Royal Opera House, and Buckingham Palace (UK).

Uditha Thiagarajan
Dancer

Uditha Thiagarajan, born in India and raised in Dubai, is a current graduate student pursuing Performing Arts Administration at New York University. She started learning Bharatanatyam at the age of 7 with Smt. Lakshmi Venkatesh and completed her Arangetram under the guidance of Smt. Annapoorna Murali in 2013. She graduated with a Finance degree from Bangalore, where she continued training in Bharatanatyam under Smt. B Bhanumati.
As an active member of her university dance team, Uditha helped choreograph and performed for various competitions, dance productions and festivals in the dance styles Indian Contemporary, Classical and Bollywood. Her passion for dance has had her perform for the Indian Consulate in the Middle East, for the World Dance Day event organized by UNESCO’s World Dance Council, on an Indian Reality TV show and for the inauguration of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2016. Some of the productions she has been a part of are Sambhavaami Yuge Yuge, a dance drama choreographed by Smt. Bhuvaneshwari Ratnam, Cinderella, a fairytale depicted through Asian styles of dance choreographed by Zakir Hussain, and The Mahabharata: Part 1 - Of Vengeance and Promises, a Broadway-style production choreographed by Sahasra Sambamoorthi. Uditha freelanced with a number of dance companies in the Middle East and India and is now an Events Intern at Navatman. Shifting from a career in finance to the arts, Uditha truly believes that art has the power to change the world and constantly aims to spread awareness on the importance of the arts.

Meghana Murthy
Dancer -in- Training

Meghana (Meg) Murthy began her Bharatanatyam dance career at the age of 5 from Smt. Vidhya Subramanian. As a dancer with Lasya Dance Company, she danced in multiple productions in the Bay Area and completed her Arangetram in 2009. During college, Meg traveled nationwide to compete with the collegiate Raas team, GW Raas. After graduation, she continued her Bharatanayatam training with Sahasra Sambamoorthi at Navatman, and is now a teacher at the school. She recently performed in Navatman's Diwali production: "Mahabharata Part 1:Of Vengeance and Promises" as a lead character and dance captain. Meg has also performed at Lincoln Center twice, Holi Hai NYC, and at the We Are India Gala.

Kripa Ganesh
Dancer -in- Training

Kripa started learning dance from Padmashri Adyar Lakshmanan and Shri Rama Rao from an early age and accrued over a decade of experience from them. During undergrad in addition to existing training in dance, Kripa pursued a bachelor of fine arts in bharatanatyam from Sastra university and Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam. Following this, Kripa moved to the US and started dancing again through the Mahabharata production with Navatman.