8 Years of Nrityakosh: Our Story of Coming to the Forefront of Belly Dance Movement in India

Before Nrityakosh became one of the renowned belly dance schools in India with an international presence, it began with a single vision: “I dream of making belly dance accessible as a career, as a dance form people can enjoy and embody,” our founder, Debapriya Das, says. 

With this vision in place, she designed an Oriental course that would nudge students into the vast world of Middle Eastern dance - the music, the rhythms, and the culture it was shaped by. At the time, very few belly dance schools offered to teach belly dance as an art form in its own right - with structured, progressive training.  It was largely treated as a fitness module,  marketed as a low-impact core exercise for women.  It was also largely taught from a fusion perspective. 

This Oriental course culminated in a showcase, with each act - a Raqs Sharqi piece, a Baladi piece, a Modern Oriental piece,  a drum solo -  designed around a “bhava” (emotion). The idea around the showcase was that concepts of “Bhaavas” and “rasas” are not unique to Indian art alone. They are universal and valid in any scenario where there exists an audience, a stage, and a performer. This would plant the seeds of a defining aspect of Nrityakosh's identity: storytelling through belly dance.

Breaking Ground: The RaS Project

In April 2017, Debapriya presented her first independent production, The RaS Project, a belly dance show that spotlighted the women of the Ramayana—Sita, Mandodari, and Surpanakha. This was the first production of its kind in Bangalore, a show that used Oriental dance vocabulary to tell a story. This set the tone for the future of Nrityakosh’s creative endeavours.

Performance Lab

Performance is a technique of its own that needs practice - this was one of the potent reflections that came from the RaS Project showcase.  Our founder believed that dancers we know and admire have had the performance opportunities to refine their performance skills.

It was clear that annual showcases weren’t enough to truly grow a student into a performer. With this in mind, our founder initiated Performance Lab, a community-driven space for belly dancers across Bangalore to refine their performances and present works-in-progress. The collaborative atmosphere of the Performance Lab laid the groundwork for collaborative projects, most notably Safar-e-Raqs, our most ambitious production of that time.

Safar-e-Raqs: Tracing the Dance's Roots

Premiering on January 21, 2018 at Alliance Francaise, Safar-e-Raqs was a collaborative production exploring the history of belly dance—from its origins in the 1800s to its present-day form through the lens of Orientalism. The genesis of the show was built around the question, "Why are we belly dancing?"

This question was posed to our collaborators - professional belly dancers in the city who came on board,  and theatre actors. This production put Nrityakosh on the map, both for its scale and its inclusivity.

Building the Nrityakosh Fusion Repertoire

The Nrityakosh Fusion language is a unique blend of belly dance vocabulary, aesthetics of Indian classical dance (primarily Kathak), spinal nuances of contemporary dance and ballet. This distinct Fusion language is now taught in Advance classes.

However, it was in 2018, with the piece “Husna (With or Without You)” that this language was passed onto another dancing body. Until then,  Debapriya had been developing a unique Indian fusion style as a soloist.  Husna premiered in VioLa festival on 7 January 2018 and was performed for international festivals such as Hipnosis. 

Since then, the Nrityakosh Fusion Repertoire has continued to grow, carried forward by dedicated students and performers. 

In February 2018, Debapriya also became the first Indian belly dancer to complete all three levels of the Datura 8 Elements™ program and get certified as a practitioner. 

The year also saw the creation of the Stretch and Strength module, a specialised strength, flexibility and conditioning course for belly dancersOur founder felt that for belly dancers to access their technique and understand alignment and form better, there needed to be specialised module that addresses this outside of a dance class. Though Stretch and Strength began as an offline offering, it found significant success online and continues to be taught annually.

Artistic Milestones: From Scheherazade to Salome

2018 also saw Scheherazade’s Web, a fantastical take on One Thousand and One Nights, debut as a counterpart to the historical density of Safar-e-Raqs. “Scheherazade’s Web was a momentous show for us because we, as a school, managed to pull off two big productions in a year,” said Debapriya Das. It was later retooled as "Arabian Nights" in 2024. 

Around the same time, Dance of the Seven Veils"—inspired by the biblical story of Salome and feminist literature surrounding the character— was  developed as a long-form 45-minute composition by Debapriya and Shruti Kulkarni. It was originally a 6-minute piece for Safar-e-Raqs with another collaborator, Shruti Narayanan. 

“Dance of the Seven Veils” informed the approach the Nrityakosh Company would later take to make productions and long compositions.

Cultivating Thinking Dancers

As a school, it was important that our students were not only creative but also thinking dancers. For the World Belly Dance Day hafla in April 2019, our students were broken into groups to work with songs, themes, texts of their choice. The idea was to display their versatility and prepare them for the production work for 2019.

The production the students would work on would be the show that is now part of the Nrityakosh Company repertoire - “Papusza, The Rise and Fall of a Romani Poet.”

 It was a deeply emotional production that was our first foray into crowdfunding. With the support of generous patrons, the show debuted to acclaim and has since evolved with new iterations in 2022 and 2025.

International Growth: From Student to Judge

In 2019, Debapriya travelled to the Cairo Budapest Festival- one of the most respected belly dance festivals in the world. In 2023, the Nrityakosh Company joined her, earning the Talent of the Year Award. And in 2025, Debapriya returned as a teacher and judge, marking a full-circle journey from student to global mentor.

Adapting Through the Pandemic

With the coming of the pandemic, dance and dance education adapted to a new reality. Nrityakosh, like many other dance schools, started offering online classes - first via Youtube tutorials and then, as the new reality set in, via Zoom. Post the pandemic, we integrated a hybrid model that is now standard across all our studio offerings. Students can attend in person or online, with recordings provided for practice and review.

Pandemic also changed the way we performed. Our pandemic-themed showcase, MOVE: Dancing Together Yet Apart, featured 9 dancers creating solos based on their lockdown experiences. The stories were of anxiety, loneliness, and separation, but also about hope of the post-pandemic future.  These pieces were filmed at home, stitched into a virtual performance that was showcased on YouTube. 

It was later adapted for stage in 2021. The dancers of MOVE later formed the Nrityakosh Company.

The Nrityakosh Company

Formally launched at the end of 2021, the Nrityakosh Company consists of professional dancers who train and perform together using belly dance as their core vocabulary to create unique and exciting work. Since its formation, the Company has recreated past works, staged new ones, and even taken commissions from esteemed institutions like Abhivykati Art Foundation. We’ve also collaborated with Rotary Bangalore South Parade, raising funds for community causes through our art.

Triple Bill: Empowering Dancers

To empower independent dancers across India, our founder started.  Triple Bill initiative in 2024. It allows professional belly dancers to create long-form solo work or work-in-progress without the burden of bearing the costs of putting up a show.  These dancers would also receive mentoring and guidance of Debapirya Das. Two editions of Triple Bill have been staged, featuring original work from Company dancers.

Where We Are Today

From a single course to a thriving ecosystem, Nrityakosh now operates across multiple Bangalore locations—Koramangala, HSR Layout, New BEL Road, JP Nagar,  Sarjapur Road, and Electronic City—with an active student base of over 200 dancers. Our teaching faculty has grown, our stagecraft continues to evolve, and our mission remains the same: to create a community of thinking dancers, empowered by holistic belly dance education.