SANSKRUTI TEACHERS
Krishna Zivraj-Nair: Bharatanatyam teacher and Bollywood dance instructor
Krishna is the founder and artistic director of Sanskruti Cambridge. Winner of Akademi’s UTKARSH runner up in 2016, two ACE grants, One Dance Teaching Mentoring programme and ISTD Bursary Award in recognition for her teaching skills. In 2020, during COVID-19 pandemic, Krishna received Akademi’s seed commission to create a new children’s dance piece with selected students from Sanskruti. During lockdown earlier this year, she created a virtual avatar of Sanskruti called NavSanskruti to allow her young dance students to continue practicing and performing their art form. NavSanskruti was featured on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire as well as the BBC’s web series #BBCMakeADifference. Krishna also collaborated with Cambridge City Council to create online video tutorials for the wider community as a part of Cambridge South Asian History Month. She received another commission by Cambridge City Council to create a Diwali Dance Film with her students, which was released on Diwali.
Krishna and her students were selected by Akademi as one of the three dance schools in the UK to take part in Akademi’s Oral History Project. Krishna has also managed to make Sanskruti an ISTD exam centre with the first ever ISTD Bharatanatyam exams in Cambridge conducted on 12th and 13th December, 2020. Twenty-three students successfully did their ISTD dance exams from Grade 1- 4 and Intermediate Foundation.
Formally trained as a research scientist with a PhD in Neuroscience, Krishna was working as a postdoctoral research scientist at University of Cambridge until the birth of her first child in 2010. She lives with her husband Amit Nair, two children- Sia and Arjun, and a 17 months old cocker spaniel called Dobby. Krishna is also a breast cancer survivor and is ever grateful to the Oncology Department at Addenbrooke’s Hospital for treating her stage 2 breast cancer from 2018-2019. The additional experience of undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy and two surgeries in a span of 14 months, her new mantra is ‘#Life is good’!”
In addition to Bharatanatyam, in a more relaxed and informal setting, Krishna continues to teach Bollywood style dance to adults and children locally.
Anjali Das: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Anjali has been learning and performing Bharatanatyam from a very young age. As a child growing up in Dehli, India, she trained for 10 years with Gurus Smt. Gauri Sitaraman, Smt. Asha Muralidharan and Smt. Priya Venkataraman. At that point, she enjoyed dance but never really understood its importance in her life. It took her 24 years to get back to serious training with Guru. Krishna Zivraj-Nair at Sanskruti and she has been learning and performing with Sanskruti for the last 6 years.
Anjali’s most memorable performance was being back on stage for Shakti at Cambridge Junction in 2017 when she shared the stage with her daughter for the first time. While she continues to work and train hard building on her strength and technique, she has been actively performing at local festivals including Cambridge Big Weekend Festivals. She aims to reach out to a wider community with her dance and she has been fortunate to do so by performing at Cambridge Asian Mela, community Diwali celebrations and at London’s Mahalakshmi Temple for Mahashivratri celebrations just before the lockdown.
Anjali is currently learning Natyashastra techniques as part of her dance training with Krishna. She has completed ISTD Grade 3 and is planning to work towards ISTD vocational qualifications in Bharatanatyam.
Neethu Vivek: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Neethu has been learning Bharatanatyam from Guru Krishna Zivraj-Nair since 2019. She started learning the art form from the age of 7 in Kerala. She trained under Smt. Kunjumol and Smt. Najarani before she was under the tutelage of Kalamandalam Vijayakumari. She has performed solo and in group presentations at various festivals in India and won prizes at youth festival competitions. She also learnt Kuchipudi during her time in India. Her journey in learning the art form took a hiatus when she went to study medicine. She is currently preparing for her Arangetram under her Guru Krishna’s guidance in June 2022. Her passion is to delve deep into understanding this art form and would like to complete her ISTD graded exams.
Gayathiri Subramaniam: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Gayathiri has been learning Bharatanatyam under Guru Krishna Zivraj-Nair since 2019 at Sanskruti Cambridge. She is passionate about dance and has performed at several events locally, including Cambridge Big Weekend Festival, Mastana and NavSanskruti. She works full time as an Engineer and is a mother of two girls, also train under the same Guru.
Aarthi Arun: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Aarthi has been learning Bharatanatyam from her guru, Krishna Zivraj-Nair since 2008, performing at various events including Cambridge Big Weekend, U.Dance 2018 and the Yuva dance competition at London Southbank Centre in 2015. She has attended Bharatanatyam classes and workshops from Smt. Pushkala Gopal, Rukmini Vijayakumar, Guru Padma Murali and Prathiba Batley, as well as being mentored by Anusha Subramanian at the Yuva Gati CAT programme from 2015 – 2016. She kept in touch with dance during University through online workshops by Guru Madurai Muralidaran, and has completed her ISTD Grade 3 qualification. Aarthi enjoys many dance styles, including a short stint in Kathak with Sonia Sabri Dance Company.
Linnéa Husmann: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Linnéa Husmann has been learning Bharatnatyam for eight years from her Guru, Krishna Zivraj-Nair. Linnéa has performed as part of Sanskruti School of Dance and YuvaGati, including the Cambridge Big Weekend festivals and the YuvaGati Summer showcases. In addition, she has performed solo at the Alchemy weekend (2015) and Navadal (2019) at the London South Bank Centre, completed ISTD Grade 3 with distinction and performed at U.Dance 2018 and 2019. Linnéa was recently awarded the Brackenbury Bursary Award from Impington Village College and the ISTD Junior Bursary Award 2019, competing nationally against dancers from many other strands, in recognition of her future potential in dance. In June 2019, she successfully completed her arangetram at the Junction in Cambridge.
Linnéa is a teaching assistant at our Orchard Park Bharatanatyam classes for intermediate level on Saturday mornings. She has also been selected as a senior dance artist for Akademi’s Oral History project and will create dance movement based on the testimonies collected by Sanskruti’s junior students. She will use Bharatanatyam vocabulary to choreograph this new dance work. Alongside teaching, Linnea is also a selected young dance artist for Magical Honey- a new dance theatre work by Sanskruti Dance- our professional dance company.
Martina Ghinetti: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Martina has been learning Bharatanatyam since 2013 under Guru Krishna Zivraj-Nair at Sanskruti Cambridge. She completed her Arangetram in June 2016 at Cambridge Junction. Martina is also trained in Rhythmic Gymnastics from 2003 until June 2013 at Società Ginnastica Raffaele Rubattino, Genova, Italy.
She was shortlisted to participate in national platform Yuva- a south Asian dance competition held at Southbank Centre, London in 2016. She has done summer intensives in Bangalore, India with Guru Padma Murali, Padmalaya Dance Foundation and Guru Rukmini Vijayakumar, Raadha Kalpa Dance Company.
Martina likes to express herself through dance because it is a universal language transcending all barriers and because she has the chance to interpret many different sides of human existence. Her Bharatanatyam aspirations include deepening her knowledge of the art form, learning to choreograph on contemporary themes using Bharatanatyam vocabulary and teaching students, including following the ISTD Bharatanatyam syllabus.
Martina is currently learning the art of Nattuvangam (Konnakol) with Guru M. Balamurali at the Bhavan, London. She is also working towards ISTD Vocational Qualifications under Krishna’s guidance and has joined Sanskruti as an assistant Bharatanatyam teacher.