What We Do

At Chhandam we aim to:

• Advance the art form of kathak through producing and/or commissioning cutting-edge, high caliber performances that reflect the diversity of artistic breadth and depth of Pandit Chitresh Das’ disciples as well as new future generations of artists trained at Chhandam.  Our current resident dance company is the Leela Dance Collective.
• Uphold a premiere academy of Indian cultural arts that provides a center of excellence for standards-based training in kathak dance, integrated with North Indian classical music, taal, theory, and language.
• Develop a sustainable infrastructure to support the organization’s work and to financially support artists to work viable careers in the art

Culture Code at Chhandam:

• We cultivate space for multiple voices and for new people to emerge as leaders.
• Through treating everyone equal, we engage in proactive communication to manage group dynamics for the greater good.
• We believe in outlining clear roles and ownership of responsibilities. If everyone is responsible for everything then no one is responsible for anything.
• We operate from the mindset that management must be accountable to staff as much as staff should be accountable to management.
• We are committed to complete financial transparency - regularly reporting on financials to staff and dancers, even to contracted dancers.
• Our driving goal is to increase ownership at all levels of the organization.