08/19/2026
We were thrilled to award Shruti Abhishek Dance an A4 Arts Fund grant last year for general operating support.
Since 2018, Shruti Abhishek has worked to sustain and evolve the tradition of Bharatanatyam in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond through performance, presenting, and education. As an appropriated dance form from South India, the company is dedicated to reclaiming and recontextualizing Bharantanatym while exploring intersections with post-modern Western art forms and media.
Through festivals, performances, and community programming, Shruti Abhishek Dance centers the diverse voices of the South Asian diaspora. Their When Eyes Speak Festival, the only South Asian choreography festival in San Francisco and co-curated with Preethi Ramaprasad, brings together artists from across the broader South Asian diaspora in dance, theater, music, poetry, and interdisciplinary practices.
The company also partners with local organizations such as Narika, a nonprofit supporting survivors of domestic violence, to create culturally responsive dance-theatre programs that support healing and storytelling. Educational programs, including the intergenerational Kshetram School of Dance, teach Bharatanatyam as a living, evolving art form rooted in contemporary diasporic realities, with performances and lecture-demonstrations at community venues and universities such as UC Riverside and Sonoma State University.
Shruti Abhishek Dance recently received the Livermore Project and Program Grant, supporting the creation of free, community-centered cultural and educational programming for youth in Livermore through a South Asian lens.
