Dr Rathna KUMAR
Artistic Director
Samskriti, Society for Indian Performing Arts, USA

Ms Rathna Kumar, Founder-Director, ANJALI Center for Performing Arts, is one of the most awarded and recognized Indian dancers in the US. She is a recipient of numerous Dance, Choreography and Arts-in-Education Grants and Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Houston Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission on the Arts, Certificate of Appreciation (Governor of Texas), Congressional Recognition (Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee), Apple Award (Texas Institute for Arts in Education), Outstanding Asian Award (Houston METRO), Teacher Recognition Certificates (National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts), Outstanding Contribution to Asian Arts (Asian Pacific American Heritage Association), and an Honorary Doctorate in Performing Arts (Telugu University, Hyderabad, India). Ms Kumar is a Board Member of World Dance Houston, Multicultural Artists Collective of Houston, and Houston Asian Arts, and a member of UNESCO's International Dance Council and Association of Bharatanatyam Artists of India. Currently she is the Artistic Director of Samskriti - Society for Indian Performing Arts, and a Teaching Artist with the Young Audiences of Houston. She also teaches a course in Bharatanatyam at the Rice University.