Students Perform During Annual Celebration of Indian Music and Dance

Wesleyan students  Akhil Joondeph ’26 and Tanvi Navile ’25 performed during the Indian Dance Showcase as part of the 48th anniversary Navaratri Festival at Wesleyan on Oct. 12.

Each dancer demonstrated a different classical dance style. The students were invited to perform at the festival by Hari Krishnan, professor of Dance, Global South Asian Studies, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. They were joined by Connecticut-based choreographers Sarada Nori Akella, who performed South Indian Kuchipudi dance, and Rachna Agrawal, performing North Indian Kathak dance.

Navile and Joondeph had previously taken Krishnan’s South Indian Bharatanatyam dance class together. “At Wesleyan, there’s such a rich cultural history of the Indian classical arts,” Navile said. “It was wonderful to have that kind of community.” Her decision to attend Wesleyan was influenced by the fact that the University has an annual Navaratri Festival, which celebrates the diversity of Indian music and dance. 

“It’s great to meet other Indian artists, especially in Connecticut,” Joondeph said of the experience. “It was very inspiring.” 

Navile and Joondeph also supported Center for the Arts artist-in-residence Sunny Jain with the development of his new music theater work in progress “Love Force.” A preview of the work was shown at Wesleyan on Sept. 27. Navile got involved with the work through Shakti, Wesleyan’s South Asian Students’ Association. The two students did several motion capture sessions in April and September in the Digital Design Studio to record the silhouette visuals that are projected on the back wall of the theater during the show. “It was a wonderful opportunity and experience,” Navile said.

“It was exciting to be a part of that project, not only because his work was so brilliant and moving, but I think it’s lovely to see other South Asian artists being extremely internally critical,” Joondeph said of Jain’s work, which draws parallels between the caste system in India and the history of American racism, and questions cultural traditions and religious dogma. “I think that’s something that as a community we struggle with,” Joondeph said.  

Navile began her formal training in the Bharatanatyam style at age five under her mother, Deepti Mukund Navile, who has served as the artistic director of the Natyabhoomi School of Dance in Maryland for 30 years. “I think the style is inherently very spiritual,” Navile said. Dance was ingrained in her family and how she was raised, Navile said, and her older sister Shreya Navile is also an inspiration to her. “I definitely have her style in some ways, more than my mom’s, which is really fun, because I didn’t just have my mom as this guru, but I also had my sister,” Navile said. Shreya was featured in the cast of the 2023 Off-Broadway production of Monsoon Wedding: The Musical, for which Sunny Jain was the music producer.

Navile said being invited by Krishnan to perform at the Navaratri Festival as a senior was special to her. “To be able to do that here, in the same space as these legendary artists, was amazing,” Navile said. She has performed in the U.S. and in India, including several times at the Kennedy Center in Washington. 

A double major in psychology and sociology, Navile is vice president of the Wesleyan Student Assembly and is involved with the student WesBurlesque show in the spring semester. She also said she wants to revive WesMalai, the student South Asian dance and music group, before she graduates in May. “I’m going to try to create that kind of community again,” Navile said. She hopes to work for non-profits in the Washington, D.C. area and is also considering attending law school.  

Joondeph started dancing when he was three years old in California. He was also honored to be asked by Krishnan to perform at the Navaratri Festival. Wearing a costume crafted by wrapping the fabric of his grandmother’s sari, Joondeph performed a 10-minute work in the Odissi dance style from Eastern India choreographed by Ratikant Mohapatra, who Joondeph trained with in both the U.S. and India. “It’s a very beautiful work, and it also can exist without explicit ties to religion,” Joondeph said. “We can all tap into those feelings of love and longing, which is to me what the piece was really about.”

“I think it was a lovely experience,” Joondeph said of performing during the festival. ”This was the first big Odissi presentation that I’ve given in a long time and so it feels really great to get to do that again.” 

A double major in anthropology and dance, Joondeph is the director of Fusion, the Wesleyan student experimental hip hop dance group. “That’s been such a cornerstone of my experience here,” Joondeph said. A founding member of Ishami Dance Company, he has performed at festivals in California and Chicago and will direct a dance project that will premiere in the Bay Area in the summer of 2025.