ahmedabad menaka thakkars theosophist father bhanuchandra nurtured the dream that she would become a doctor one day and she indeed lived up to his expectations becoming a doctor of the traditional dance forms of bharat natyam kuchipudi and odissi thakkar has been running an art academy in toronto for the past 40 years she has recently started a novel project with the canadian governments grant to promote indian classical dance and indian culture under this project indian classical dance centres run by my students in the us the uk and canada are linked online says thakkar who is one of few artistes to use stateoftheart technology to promote indian classical dance forms across the globe the link helps us impart dance training to students at these affiliated centres abroad preserving indian classical dance forms and promoting them abroad is thakkars avowed mission so a new means to share timeless traditions with the modern world has pleased her thakkar who has been honoured with the titles of singarmani bharatnatyam and singarmani odissi is one of the few cultural figures to have been invited by canada to stay permanently in toronto honouring the invitation thakkar founded a dance academy in toronto nrtuyakala some 40 ago and was conferred an honorary doctorate by york university for mastering indian traditional dance forms thakkar began initial training under her elder sister sudha thakkar and noted dancer anjali medh at her residence in mumbai at the time she was only four years old later she evolved into an artiste with a formal degree in dance forms from jj school of arts thakkars mentor is the odissi legend the late kelucharan mahapatra thakkar has been bestowed with many prestigious international titles and awards including japans asian cultural prize traditional creative residency award of canada art of toronto and face and art award thakkar has choreographed dance compositions like geet govind sitaayan parashakti moods of morning space and rhythm karnakunti farewell of heaven and mahi madhav these are experimental compositions that retain pure aesthetics of classical dance forms thakkar says