The New York Kathak Festival is a nonprofit organization that presents and promotes dancers, scholars, and practitioners of Kathak, a classical dance tracing its origins to India. We produce a festival bringing together established and emerging artists from across the United States and beyond. The Kathak Festival is produced by the American Kathak community, inspiring creative exchange between local Kathak artists and diverse New York audiences.
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The New York Kathak Festival is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is run by a team of young professionals
who live and work in the New York metropolitan area. The Kathak Festival is our passion above and beyond our professional careers in industries ranging from fashion, technology, finance, fitness, education, journalism, design, and medicine.
As a group of volunteers who love Kathak and have learned so much through it, we take it as our responsibility to set a strong foundation for this rich classical tradition to thrive in New York.
We bring the American Kathak community together by inviting all in: creating a platform for dancers of every style, guru, and lineage, and at different phases in their dance careers. NYKF is not about promoting any one individual or group—it’s about the dance.
Kathak first came to the US in the 1950s and 1960s through New Yorkers who travelled to India to learn from masters. Inspired by them, we aspire to create fertile ground for genuine exchange by welcoming global artists and diverse local audiences — inspiring innovative art and expression for all.
NYKF’s success is opening Kathak students, dancers, and new audiences to the magic of the dance. We inspire and encourage their imaginations to learn and share.
Our team is comprised of a cross section of Kathak dancers, scholars, and aficionados from different lineages, styles, and teachers/gurus. The festival is our expression of gratitude for the art that our teachers have passed to us, and their teachers passed to them—against difficult odds, and often without recognition.
We seek to add the voices of a new generation of curators, practitioners + advocates of the art—holding space for Kathak dancers to challenge norms around the limits of their creative expression, and speak the truths of their contexts.
