Jamuna Chiarini is a dance artist, producer, curator, and writer who produces DanceWatch Weekly for Oregon ArtsWatch. Originally from Berkeley, CA, she studied dance at Berkeley High School, East Bay Dance Center, Shawl Anderson, Oakland Ballet School, The School of The Hartford Ballet, and Florida State University, to name a few. She has also trained in Bharatanatyam and Odissi and is a student of Odissi teacher Srimati Yashaswini Raghuram. She has performed professionally throughout the United States as a dancer, singer, and actor for dance companies, operas, and musical theatre productions. Choreography credits include solos and group work for opera and contemporary dance companies in various dance styles. She received a Regional Arts & Culture Council project grant to create a 30-minute trio, “The Kitchen Sink,” performed in November 2017, and was invited to be part of Shawl-Anderson’s Dance Up Close/East Bay in Berkeley, CA. Jamuna was a scholarship recipient to the Urban Bush Women’s Summer Leadership Institute, “Undoing Racism,” and was a two-year member of CORPUS, a mentoring program directed by Linda K. Johnson. As a producer, she is the founder of The Outlet Dance Project in Hamilton, N.J., a platform dedicated to producing the choreographic work of women-identified choreographers at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey.
Yashaswini Raghuram is a Bharatanatyam and Odissi dancer and teacher. She has been learning Bharatanatyam under Srimati Shubha Dhananjay from Bangalore, India, and Odissi under Srimati Aparupa Chatterjee. She is also the Assistant Director of Odissi Dance Company, the only actively touring Odissi company in the United States. As a learner and performer for the past 25 years, along with the company and her teachers, she has performed extensively in India and the USA. She received the “Odissi Prativa” title and was selected as one of the “’Top 10 Talents” at the Odissi International Festival in 2016. She was also invited to perform at the International Odissi Festival 2019 conducted by the Odissi Research Center, Govt of Odisha.
She has also assisted her Odissi teacher in conducting The Kelucharan Guna Keertanam, a flagship event of ODC, all over the USA and in India. Yashaswini has also curated dance festivals in Portland, Nrityarpanam (2015), Nritya Shubha Dance Festival (2017), Pratham Odissi Festival (2018), and Srinivasa Kalyana- A Fundraiser For the HECSA Temple (2019).
Get in touch
jamunadasi@me.com
Jamuna Chiarini 