Padma Menon

Padma Menon has enjoyed a diverse and successful dance career in performance, choreography, direction and lecturing for 25 years. She began training in the Bharatha Natyam style of classical Indian dance in 1973 in Hyderabad, South India. A year later she began training in Kuchipudi a theatrical dance style evolved from ancient Sanskrit Theatre. She performed her Arangetram or graduation solo recital in both styles in 1978.

In 1989 Padma moved to Australia. In 1992 the Kailash Dance Company led by her as Artistic Director was incorporated with funding from the Australian state and federal governments. In 1995 she collaborated with Meryl Tankard to create Rasa which premiered at the Adelaide International Festival of the Arts. Padma was conferred the Critics Circle Award for Dance in 1992, 1994 and 1996. She was awarded Artist of the Year in October 1994. She was member of the inaugural ACT Cultural Council in 1992. She was also member of the Dance Committee of the Australia Council.

In 1999 she moved to The Netherlands. The first solo she created for herself was for the prestigious Cadance Festival of Modern Dance in The Netherlands, was Where Angels Fear to Tread which presented the complex issues about the sexuality and loneliness of women as mothers. She has since made several works in The Netherlands like Rudra for modern dancer Gunvor Karlsen which located the animist and primeval energy of the male God Rudra in a female body and Fireborn a solo for herself based on the story of the Bandit Queen of India, Phoolan Devi. She made a solo Ophelia for the acclaimed classical ballet dancer Raphaelle Delauney which premiered in the international Holland Dance Festival. The last work she made in Europe was the spectacular opening of the Cadance Festival 2005 with 50 dancers, singers and musicians inspired by the dynamic energy and exuberance of Bollywood cinema from India.

Padma was a guest teacher at the internationally renowned Rotterdam Dance Academy from 2000-2004. She also completed her Masters in Choreography at Rotterdam specialising in Laban movement analysis.

In 2005 Padma moved to India and started Mudra Centre for Dance. The aim of Mudra was to disseminate a new way of thinking about the body and to combine the techniques of modern and classical Indian dance to create a new vocabulary from training level itself. Mudra worked in partnership with organisations in The Netherlands including the Korzo Theatre in The Hague to arrange student and teacher exchange programs. In under a year Mudra presented four choreographers working in this new way which is a landmark in conservative Indian dance scene.

While in the Netherlands Padma began to develop ways of working with community projects that encouraged equal dialogues through dance between cultures. She created an innovative project for young Muslim women in schools in The Hague called Homelands which linked their own artistic traditions with their contemporary experience of life in Europe. This project has since become a model for such projects in the Netherlands. In India she continued this work by partnering the Human Rights Law Network, Shanthi Bhavan home for women and Raksha School for children with special needs. She facilitated and created projects for these organisations using dance as a way of dealing with and transforming social justice and humanitarian issues.

Padma is also a yoga practitioner having trained with traditional teachers in India for the past ten years. She is well versed in kalaripayattu, the martial art form of Kerala.

In January 2008 Padma returned to Canberra, Australia. She has set up Mudra Centre for Dance in Canberra and has started teaching her unique approach to dance. She is currently cofounder of Shared Spaces Incorporated.

For more information www.padmamenon.com