Photo credit: Juan Carlos Pometta Betancourt
The daughter of a dancer, Tara Catherine Pandeya is a Bay Area-born dance artist who has touched the hearts of audiences internationally for nearly two decades as a performer, teacher and choreographer, creating socially-engaged work across 35 countries.
Tara creates community responsive dance experiences and site-specific installations in parallel with cultural advocacy and scholarly dance work. As a Fulbright scholar of dance, Tara conducts independent dance research & currently teaches as an adjunct professor for Alonzo King's LINES ballet BFA program at Dominican University of California and for Saint Mary's College of Moraga.
Tara believes in the power of dance to support outlets for expression and connection with the intention to evoke beauty, magical surrealism and wonder, inviting curiosity and questioning of social norms through art.
She uses dance as a healing tool, centering her work around the female voice and rooted in principles of embodiment, environmentalism, cultural-sensitivity, deep listening and exchange. She is dedicated to the positive visibility of dance forms from the region Central Asia, as well as in supporting more diverse, inclusive and non-western representations of dance to be recognized on the global stage and in the wider field of academia.
Tara is dedicated to taking an in-depth approach to traditional dance training and research. She was exposed to dance and music since infancy; she trained in multiple dance styles including classical South and North Indian, traditional Middle Eastern, Central Asian, modern, tap and ethno-contemporary. Tara’s greatest dance mentors include Zaragol Iskandarova, Katarina Burda, Charya Burt, Antonia Minnecola, Farohat Saidova, Bea Blum, Katherine Kunhiraman and her mother, Barbara Framm.
Tara is grateful to have received artistic funding from various organizations and institutions to continue her work; both theoretical and performance-based. She has participated in dance research residencies in Russia, Estonia, Germany, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang (East Turkestan), Pakistan and India. in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Estonia, Uyghur Autonomous Xinjiang, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan and India. She is the recipient of the Rockfeller Foundation-Funded Asian Cultural Council Individual Artist grant, a CECArtslink residency fellowship, a selected master artist for the California Alliance for Traditional Arts for the apprenticeship program, a CHIME (Margaret Jenkin's Choreographers Mentorship Exchange) grant, a Rauschenberg Foundation individual artist grant, a selected dancer for two separate Creative Work Fund grants, a Isadora Duncan Dance Award nominated 'Most outstanding individual artist of the year' and a Christensen Foundation funded dance work through Tajik Dance Initiative NGO, of which she was a founding participant.
Tara holds an MA in Dance Anthropology from London’s Roehampton University- Centre for Dance Research and a BA in Liberal Arts with a Minor in Arabic from Saint Mary's College LEAP (Liberal Education for Arts Professionals) Program.
Tara has danced for numerous dance companies, of which she was often the youngest performing member, such as: as Wan Chao-Chang Dance Company, Ballet Afsaneh, the Bea’s Knees, Aywah! Ethnic Dance Company and Kalanjali Dances of India.
Tara has danced as principal dancer and soloist with Cirque du Soleil for nearly 5 years, as the first westerner with Lola, the National Dance Company of Tajikistan, with Ballet Afsaneh for Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, with the Berlin Philharmonic, Goldman Environmental Awards,, at the Victoria Museum with the Silk Road Collective, at the British Museum and for (former) Mayor Gavin Newsome's annual Nowruz celebration at San Francisco City Hall.
Choreographically, Tara has created original dance works for Berlin's EU-funded Audacious Minds Festival (a 6 month dance commission to create a 1 hour dance piece), with UNESCO, for the 100 year anniversary of the Bauhaus Festival & at Royal Albert Hall, a four time commissioned soloist with the SF Ethnic Dance Festival and annual (2016-2022) collaborations with Billy Chang through the Taipei and Taichung National Theaters in Taiwan.
From 2010-2015, Tara played the principle dance role of 'Oceane' (the goddess of water) in Cirque du Soleil's Dralion, for which she performed 1,500 shows on 5 continents in 170 cities. While on tour, she was also promoted to the position of assistant to the director and Pilates instructor- running dress rehearsals, training understudies and teaching a daily warm up class for acrobats and staff alike. Tara additionally lead and organized dance and circus workshops across the globe for marginalized communities- serving as the tour's Social Outreach Liaison. Examples of international project created include: with children of AIDs patients in South Africa, with Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and for at-risk youth in Caracas and Guatemala City.
In 2009, Tara co-founded the organization East West Centerpoint fiscally sponsored by Factured Atlas a non-profit with her artistic partner Ostad Abbos Kosimov, a creative sanctuary to collaborate with fellow artists, activists and educators to preserve and envision new works firmed rooted in tradition and crafted for the contemporary stage.
Tara creates community responsive dance experiences and site-specific installations in parallel with cultural advocacy and scholarly dance work. As a Fulbright scholar of dance, Tara conducts independent dance research & currently teaches as an adjunct professor for Alonzo King's LINES ballet BFA program at Dominican University of California and for Saint Mary's College of Moraga.
Tara believes in the power of dance to support outlets for expression and connection with the intention to evoke beauty, magical surrealism and wonder, inviting curiosity and questioning of social norms through art.
She uses dance as a healing tool, centering her work around the female voice and rooted in principles of embodiment, environmentalism, cultural-sensitivity, deep listening and exchange. She is dedicated to the positive visibility of dance forms from the region Central Asia, as well as in supporting more diverse, inclusive and non-western representations of dance to be recognized on the global stage and in the wider field of academia.
Tara is dedicated to taking an in-depth approach to traditional dance training and research. She was exposed to dance and music since infancy; she trained in multiple dance styles including classical South and North Indian, traditional Middle Eastern, Central Asian, modern, tap and ethno-contemporary. Tara’s greatest dance mentors include Zaragol Iskandarova, Katarina Burda, Charya Burt, Antonia Minnecola, Farohat Saidova, Bea Blum, Katherine Kunhiraman and her mother, Barbara Framm.
Tara is grateful to have received artistic funding from various organizations and institutions to continue her work; both theoretical and performance-based. She has participated in dance research residencies in Russia, Estonia, Germany, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang (East Turkestan), Pakistan and India. in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Estonia, Uyghur Autonomous Xinjiang, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan and India. She is the recipient of the Rockfeller Foundation-Funded Asian Cultural Council Individual Artist grant, a CECArtslink residency fellowship, a selected master artist for the California Alliance for Traditional Arts for the apprenticeship program, a CHIME (Margaret Jenkin's Choreographers Mentorship Exchange) grant, a Rauschenberg Foundation individual artist grant, a selected dancer for two separate Creative Work Fund grants, a Isadora Duncan Dance Award nominated 'Most outstanding individual artist of the year' and a Christensen Foundation funded dance work through Tajik Dance Initiative NGO, of which she was a founding participant.
Tara holds an MA in Dance Anthropology from London’s Roehampton University- Centre for Dance Research and a BA in Liberal Arts with a Minor in Arabic from Saint Mary's College LEAP (Liberal Education for Arts Professionals) Program.
Tara has danced for numerous dance companies, of which she was often the youngest performing member, such as: as Wan Chao-Chang Dance Company, Ballet Afsaneh, the Bea’s Knees, Aywah! Ethnic Dance Company and Kalanjali Dances of India.
Tara has danced as principal dancer and soloist with Cirque du Soleil for nearly 5 years, as the first westerner with Lola, the National Dance Company of Tajikistan, with Ballet Afsaneh for Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, with the Berlin Philharmonic, Goldman Environmental Awards,, at the Victoria Museum with the Silk Road Collective, at the British Museum and for (former) Mayor Gavin Newsome's annual Nowruz celebration at San Francisco City Hall.
Choreographically, Tara has created original dance works for Berlin's EU-funded Audacious Minds Festival (a 6 month dance commission to create a 1 hour dance piece), with UNESCO, for the 100 year anniversary of the Bauhaus Festival & at Royal Albert Hall, a four time commissioned soloist with the SF Ethnic Dance Festival and annual (2016-2022) collaborations with Billy Chang through the Taipei and Taichung National Theaters in Taiwan.
From 2010-2015, Tara played the principle dance role of 'Oceane' (the goddess of water) in Cirque du Soleil's Dralion, for which she performed 1,500 shows on 5 continents in 170 cities. While on tour, she was also promoted to the position of assistant to the director and Pilates instructor- running dress rehearsals, training understudies and teaching a daily warm up class for acrobats and staff alike. Tara additionally lead and organized dance and circus workshops across the globe for marginalized communities- serving as the tour's Social Outreach Liaison. Examples of international project created include: with children of AIDs patients in South Africa, with Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and for at-risk youth in Caracas and Guatemala City.
In 2009, Tara co-founded the organization East West Centerpoint fiscally sponsored by Factured Atlas a non-profit with her artistic partner Ostad Abbos Kosimov, a creative sanctuary to collaborate with fellow artists, activists and educators to preserve and envision new works firmed rooted in tradition and crafted for the contemporary stage.