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'Nrityadhara' is an institution dedicated to the Indian classical Kathak Dance, which has been founded in the year 1988 for promotion of dance, music and performing arts. Nrityalankar Mrs. Mukta Joshi is the founder and director of this institution.

Mukta Joshi is a B.Com. Graduate and has done her L.L.B from the Mumbai University.
Her interest in Dance was from childhood. She started learning Kathak dance in the year1978. Her Gurus Dr. Rajkumar Ketkar (Lucknow Gharana) and Dr. Padmashree Roshan Kumari(Jaipur Gharana) is her inspiration and support.

She worked as an advocate in Thane district court for 4 years but then realized that her interest was only in dance and music. She then dedicated herself to the art of dance and music by teaching her students.

Through 'Nrityadhara' Mukta Joshi conducts Kathak classes both at Thane and Kalyan. Today more than 150 students are taking lessons of kathak dance and folk art in this institution. Apart from such training, Nrityadhara also conducts different types of activities for promotion of kathak such as lectures, demonstrations, workshops and programme of students.

The right age to learn Kathak dance is when the individual is between 6years & 7years of age, but anybody can start to learn at anytime. She has students from the age group of 6 years to 45years. Lots of dedication and interest is needed to learn this art. The duration to excel in this field depends upon every individual's capacity to grasp. The minimum time needed is 7 years.

Nrityadhara celeberated its 1st Guru Pournima utsav in 1992 at 'Marathi Granth Sangralaya, Thane'. This utsav is celebrated every year and new comers are also encouraged to present their dances.

Mukta Joshi has performed her dance programmes in India at different places like Mumbai, Calcutta, Nagpur, Bangalore, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Illahabad, etc. She has also performed for the World folk festival in Utah & Idaho in America. She and her 23 students had participated in the 'World folk dance festival, Korea', in May 2001.

Nrityadhara's students have already performed many creative items in different programmes like 'Ritu Malhar', 'Ritu Rang', 'Dashantar', 'Rag-Taal-Mala', 'Dhrupad', 'Nayika-bhav', 'RadhaKrishna Hori', etc….

Mukta Joshi has worked with Mr. Shyam Benegal the maker of the film 'Sardari Begum'. She has choreographed a Kathak dance and facial expressions (Mukh Dhara) for about 4 songs in this movie, the famous being the song 'Chahe maar dalo raja…' This has given her the opportunity to work with actresses like Ms. Smruti Mishra, Ms. Nandita Puri (Serial actress) and Mrs. Kiron Kher.