Mayuri Upadhya (born 30 December 1979) is an Indian choreographer, dancer, entrepreneur and TV personality based in Bengaluru, India. She is also the Artistic Director of the Bengaluru-based dance organisation, Nritarutya.
In January 2018, Mayuri was voted the Best Choreographer by BroadwayWorld, for the longest running musical in Indian history. Mayuri is the winner of the International Choreography Award, Seoul, Uday Shankar Awards for Choreography, and a Manav Ratna for her contribution to Indian arts and culture, in addition to numerous other awards.
Biography
Family and Training
Mayuri was born in the coastal town of Udupi, Karnataka to Muralidhar Upadhya and Shamala Upadhya on 30 December 1979. She is the youngest of two siblings. Her elder sister Madhuri Upadhya is also a choreographer, and is the Associate Director of Nritarutya.
Mayuri is an alumnus of Sri Vani Education Centre and a graduate from MES College of Arts, Commerce & Science.
Training
She trained in Bharatanatyam under Indira Kadambi and Minal Prabhu, and Odissi under Uday Shetty. She has also trained in Kathak under Guru Maya Rao and Jayanthi Eswarputhi, and Kalaripayattu under Ranjan Mullaratt. She also has the Arts Council England’s Artist Management credentials to her credit.
Career
Mayuri’s career has foraged beyond the traditional dance network. Her canvas of work depicts a wide range. A beautifully balanced mix of visual interpretations, cultural sensitivity, conditioning future generations, and capacity building, marks her two decades long journey.
The spectrum of her creativity features the cinemascopic renditions, experimental works, emotion-stirring choreography on one hand (her contemporary work, Bollywood movies like Mirzya, the epic musical ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ and ‘Raunaq and Jassi’, and Harivanshrai Bachchan's ‘Madhushala’, to name a few), and her curatorial and conceptualizing prowess on the other hand (designing and leading the Sublime's Teaching for Arts India initiative, curating the dance portfolio for Serendipity Arts Festival (2019-2020), and actively working in preserving and promoting cultural traditions by presenting it in the modern context). And to top it all, Bangalore based dance organization Nritarutya is growing steady and strong under her artistic direction.
Artistic Director - Nritarutya
Founded in 2000, Nritarutya, today, has become one of the foremost contemporary dance organisations in the country with path-breaking creative works, pioneering employment reforms for artists, and introducing creative platforms like Adhyaya and Prayog to the dance fraternity.
Adhyaya, is Nritarutya's festival of dance, celebrating innovation and tradition. It programs and showcases never-before-seen works for Bangalore audiences, inviting artists from across the world with works that is an amalgamation of “innovation and tradition”. Most of the times, artists have created a new piece just to be showcased at Adhayaya. For the first time in 2018, Adhyaya opened its doors to applications from artists the world over seeking an avant garde platform to perform their works in, receiving a whopping 120 entries.
Mayuri's experimental creation initiative Prayog, is a festival that commissions and showcases out-of-the-box Indian dance compositions. All the commissions follow the rule of interpreting mythology in contemporary ways, and is often a melting pot of designers, musicians, painters, choreographers, dancers, and theatre artists.
She got critical acclaim in 2004 with her work ‘Ardhanarishwara’, which talked about the masculinity and the femininity residing within each of us. Oum, Yantra, Footnote, Dwandwa, are few of her earliest works.
After a commission by the Wadiyar of Mysore to create a piece for their kul-devi (family Deity), Mayuri choreographed the highly acclaimed and successful ‘Kali’ in the year 2008, which talks about the deepest recesses of our unconsciousness which is wild, raw and untamed.
‘Parched – 1st Cut’, was created for the Serendipity Arts Festival 2016. The scarcity of water, humankind's mistakes and the obscure truth of our future the highlights of this piece.
‘Parched – Choreographer’s Cut’ is a work-in-progress full length production which Mayuri is working on currently.
As an independent Choreographer
In 2019, Mayuri choreographed the musical Raunaq and Jassi, directed by Feroze Abbas Khan, and produced by Book My Show. It is a Punjabi take on Romeo and Juliet. Her expertise is sought to choreograph on typical Punjabi folk numbers in the musical.