A soloist in Kuchipudi and Vilasini Natyam for close to 15 years, Pujita Krishna received her training from Vedantam Ramalinga Shastry and Dr. Anupama Kylash in Kuchipudi and Padma Bhushan Swapna Sundari in Vilasini Natyam. She has also briefly studied various western forms like modern jazz, and flamenco. She has performed at various prestigious forums including The Parthasarthy Swami Sabha, Narada Gana Sabha, India Habitat Centre, The Gandhi Centre (The Hague) and for the Sydney chapter of SPICMACAY.
Having been mentored in choreography by greats like Donald MacKayle, Pujita has adapted her training in Indian Classical dance forms to more secular and contemporary presentations. She has created works like Satpura, Trajectory, Laakho di Jaan (a video which seamlessly blends puppetry and dance) and Swachhanda Vallari (an interpretive feature on Shakuntala).
In order to spread the love of dance, Pujita founded “Feet on Earth“, a dance space where she teaches and grooms the next generation of budding dancers in Kuchipudi. Pujita shares that after teaching dance for a period of 10 years, currently she is on a break from teaching dance. She also conducts workshops and lecture demonstrations to create awareness about relatively rare dance forms like Vilasini Natyam.
A Graded artist by Doordarshan, Telangana, Pujita’s MFA thesis was ‘Revival of Vilasini Natyam at the Ranganathaswamy Temple, Hyderabad’ published by Proquest, University of Michigan (2010).
A winner of many awards, like IIDF Award for Vilasini Natyam, (2016); Ugadi Puraskar for Dance, (Dhanwantri Foundation, Hyderabad), (2014); Kamrupa Award by Manjuri Dance Academy, Guwahati (2014)’; ‘Best Performer’ award by Parthasarthy Swamy Sabha, Chennai (2013); Pujita attended and conducted a workshop at the IADMS (International Association of Dance Medicine) conference at Hague, Netherlands (2009) and received the Junior Fellowship from Ministry of Culture, from 2014-16.