SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, June 21, 2002: Chitresh Das is renowned all over India for his mastery of kathak. In 1971, at 26, he arrived in the US on a Whitney Fellowship to teach kathak — a northern India style of dance — at the University of Maryland. Now 57, he runs six kathak dance schools in the Bay Area, including San Francisco and Berkeley. He also offers a two-credit course at San Francisco State, where he is a faculty member. Das’ performance career took off in India when he accepted an invitation by musician Ravi Shankar to perform at a festival in Benares. Later, after finishing his fellowship at the University of Maryland, Das found another mentor in Ali Akbar Khan, a famous musician in India who started his own music college in San Rafael. Khan invited Das to start a dance program at his college in 1971, and Das migrated west. Das has performed all over the world. Recently, he received high honors from West Bengal government’s State Academy for his teaching. “I’m like a missionary of kathak dance,” said Das, who teaches about 200 students in the Bay Area. Kathak is among India’s six major classical styles of dance. In its days of origin, kathak was used to narrate great Indian epics such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Das adheres to kathak’s deep tradition but still strives to make it relevant to modern times.
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