WALTHAM, MA— Urmi Samadar has an MBA form Wharton School and currently serves as director of Action Learning or experiential-learning at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Concurrent with her professional career, her passion is dance.

On Friday, Oct. 26, Ms. Samadar and her team will present a dance program at New England Choice Awards gala at Westin Hotel in Waltham, MA.

“My pursuit is to build and deepen those genuine connections through the work I do at MIT, my journey as a dancer and the roles I am privileged to have, as a mother, wife, daughter, friend and others,” she told INDIA New England News earlier this year. “At MIT, I oversee a portfolio of graduate-level, project-based management courses, where students apply their classroom learning to real-world management challenges posed by SMEs to large corporations. To that end, I work with faculty, industry practitioners, students and corporations to advance this community of practice that impacts organizations and deepens students’ learning.”

Moreover, Ms. Samadar is an accomplished performer, choreographer and trainer in Indian classical and creative dance forms. She has received concurrent training in three Indian classical dance forms – Kathak, Odissi and Bharatanatyam.

Urmi Samadar

While maintaining the rigor of classical traditions, Ms. Samadar experiments by blending Indian, Western, classical and regional forms of dance in her productions. To widen her perspectives in western dances, she has taken courses and workshops in western dance forms such as Nia, Ballroom Dancing and Isodara Duncan Dance. She was a recognized child artist on Indian TV channel Doordarshan.

Ms. Samadar, an award-winning Kathak dancer from Jaipur Gharana, is an instructor of both Kathak and Odissi genres and leads her professional ensemble, Aakriti, a vibrant team of dancers with rigorous training in Indian classical dance disciplines.

She received training in Kathak and Odissi from Guru Sumitra Mitra Mukherjee and Sangeet Natak Academy awardee, Aloka Kanungo respectively. Debuted professionally at nine, she received early recognition as a child artist; performing on Indian national television, becoming a National Talent Scholar in Kathak dance and graduating as Sangeet Prabhakar in Kathak issued by Prayag Sangeet Samiti, Allahabad.

While upholding the traditional roots of Indian classical dances, Ms. Samadar’s productions have contemporary elements that appeal to global audiences. Besides her original productions, she collaborates with leading dancers and musicians.

In recent years, Ms. Samadar has performed with Grammy-award winning tabla master, Sandeep Das, Sarangi legend (late) Pandit Ramesh Mishra, Cellist-Mike Block and Odissi exponent, Mouli Pal, among others.  In August 2018, she received the prestigious Traditional Arts Apprenticeship awarded by Mass Cultural Council, where she has been recognized as a Master Artist in the Kathak genre.