Daksha Mashruwala

Daksha Mashruwala is a Mumbai-based Odissi exponent, teacher and choreographer whose artistic foundation began with Bharatanatyam. She trained for 12 years at Darpana Academy of Performing Arts under Mrinalini Sarabhai, completing her Bharatanatyam arangetram in 1970. This formative training established her grounding in classical technique, aesthetics and choreography.

In 1988, Mashruwala encountered the Odissi of Kelucharan Mohapatra while in Odisha for a performance engagement. She began with his National Centre for the Performing Arts workshop that year, subsequently travelling to Odisha for further learning and becoming his disciple through the guru-shishya tradition. Odissi became her principal performance and pedagogical practice, and her work remains rooted in Kelucharan Mohapatra's stylistic grammar while engaging new music, ideas and contemporary themes.

She founded Kaishiki Nrityabhasha in Mumbai in 1992, developing it into an Odissi institution that trains younger dancers, including artists who have gone on to perform and teach professionally. Her contributions encompass solo and group performance, choreography, workshops, lecture-demonstrations and collaborations. Her documented choreographic work includes Janani Vasundhara, An Idea Named Meera, Panchamahabhuta, Premabhakti, Srikrishna Parijatam, Crossing Oceans, Ekatatva, Samagam and El Dorado, The Golden One.

Mashruwala continues to be active as a performer, guru and choreographer. Recent documented engagements include a 2023 Konark Dance Festival presentation with Kaishiki Dance Academy, an NCPA Odissi residency in Mumbai in November 2024, a Kolkata workshop under the Odissi Dancers' Forum discussed in 2025, and participation in Mumbai's Odissi community and its annual Odissi Utsav. She is a Doordarshan Top-grade Odissi artiste and leads Kaishiki's ongoing teaching and performance activity.