Manohar Performing Arts of Canada Inc

Manohar Performing Arts of Canada Inc. (incorporated in 1993) is a Winnipeg-based registered non-profit dance theatre company that creates classical Natyasastra-based dance and drama in a Canadian context, integrating bharatanatyam and kathak into the Canadian dance landscape. Our mandate is to use the languages and motifs of classical Indian dance to create and present traditional and contemporary choreographies that speak in an accessible, authentic Canadian voice. Our mission is to support dancers and diasporic knowledge-keepers in their narrative, expressional, and movement research; to use music, spoken word, myth, and classical movement to tell stories; and to create a space for these universal stories and experiences within the Canadian cultural mosaic. Our vision is to position Manohar as a home for unique choreography, intriguing narratives, and high-quality production values, both live and online. We foster a safe creative space for dance collaboration and serve our artistic community as a resource on many aspects of South Asian dance, music, heritage, and culture.

Our original dance productions are written, designed, and choreographed by the company’s artists. We uniquely use the spoken word (including literature and poetry in English, French, and many South Asian languages) as a structural element of dance. We incorporate multimedia technologies, including dance on film. Our dance heritage draws on foundational literature of South Asian origin. Our work is often text- and lyric-based, explicitly exploring meaning through the intersection of words and movement. Manohar productions involve in-depth research and scholarship to translate source prose/poetry (studying with resource people, knowledge-keepers, and elders), explore movement interpretations, and place mythology into a contextual, accessible framework. Our approach to the source material is post-modern, post-colonial, and deconstructive – we question who is speaking, whose voices remain unheard, and how the worldview of the source literature might intersect with or challenge our current worldview.

In addition to our full-length dance productions, Manohar has a 30-year history of classical dance presentation in cultural and artistic contexts, as well as regular programming of outreach activities. Manohar presents a repertory throughout the year, including cultural performances for South Asian festivals and multicultural events in Winnipeg and across Canada. We regularly run ongoing training, body conditioning classes, and professional development courses (including online support) for professional and community-based Bharatanatyam and Kathak performers. We actively maintain and embody an archive of heritage and lineage-based choreography from traditional masters that would otherwise be lost. Our longstanding collaborations with master musicians in India have developed a significant bank of original music available for use by professional classical Indian dancers in Manitoba. Manohar collaborates with other artists and presenters across Canada.