Artistic Director & Founder

Monica Singh Sangwan started dancing at the age of six and is known for her strength, refinement of musical nuances and precision of style. Originally training and performing across India in the classical style of Bharatanatyam for twelve years under the tutelage of Guru Sonal Mansingh, she subsequently trained with Guru Madhavi Mudgal for fifteen years and had the privilege of attending several workshops by the doyen of Odissi dance, the Late Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. Monica achieved her Visharad in Odissi dance from Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, New Delhi, and was awarded Scholarships for Odissi dance by the Sahitya Kala Parishad (1997 – 98) and the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

After teaching Odissi in schools like the Vasant Valley School, Manav Sthali, and Amity International school across New Delhi she was nominated by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations as a performer and teacher for a posting abroad. Monica upon encouragement from Guru Smt Madhavi Mudgal established the Sohamasmi Centre for Performing Arts, a non-profit organisation, in Gurgaon in 2003 as a premier school of Odissi dance in Haryana. Within two years the school had two branches across Gurgaon where students were trained extensively in Odissi while pursuing the syllabus prescribed by Gandharva Mahavidyala Board. It was during this time that Monica expanded her knowledge base by collaborating with experimental theatre.

Several years of successful collaboration and international shows also provided Monica with the opportunity to comparatively understand the depth and the basis of Odissi Dance. She realised Odissi as an art form that had far greater civilizational and cultural capabilities that cannot be reached by just being a performer of the proscenium stage. The traditional nuances and the context of the art form undergoes enormous burdens of over explaining its existence when presented as a mode of entertainment.

This understanding led her towards a search that ended successfully when she met her Spiritual Guru Yogi Prakash Shankar Vyas in Varanasi and was initiated as a practioner of the most ancient form of Meditative practice that follows its lineage in the householder line from Yogiraj Lahiri Mahasaya.

To understand the depth and completeness of any Indian sacred art from be it performing art or visual art does require a deeper spiritual application that takes the seeker inwards. As that is the ultimate purpose of these art forms both for the viewers and for the practioners.

Following in the footsteps of her Guru who moved to Gisborne, Australia, she too moved to Gisborne in 2010 as a recipient of the Distinguished Talent permenant residency visa as an artist of high repute.

She continued her artistic pursuit and established the Odissi school in Australia. It was here that the formal incorporation was done under the Associations Incorporation Act (1981) of Victoria. Sohamasmi Centre for Performing Arts is formally a Non-Profit Organization. Since the past decade it has been instrumental for organizing several festivals and performances in Regional Victoria for the community.

The Sohamasmi Centre for Performing Arts is now a full-fledged premier School of Odissi dance in Melbourne and Australia. Monica’s training in Odissi and her background grounded in meditative yoga has created a unique style of approach to teaching Odissi dance as not just a dance style but a way of life that’s contemplative, joyful, ingrained in Vedic traditional nuances, understandings of cultural and political landscapes of not only the art form but also the impact of the present world on its presentation.

The unique teaching and performing approach have attracted a highly diverse student base that is representative of the multi-racial and multiethnic population not only across Melbourne but inter states as well.

Since 2016 Monica also started a Gurukul style of intensive residential workshops where the entire student base from Australia would travel and stay with the teacher and other specialists in India mostly Varanasi and Odisha. This intensive involved month-long training focusing on interpersonal relationship with the Guru and the co student base. The teaching in this format led to relationship bonds that endure over time to create a lived experience for the practioners of the art form. 

Monica’s art has taken her all over the world to countries including France, Sweden, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Vietnam, Laos, Nepal, Bangladesh, Russia, United States, Italy, Norway, Finland, and of course some of the most prestigious venues in Australia. She has led several workshop intensives in Universities across the world. Heading Sohamasmi as an Artistic director and producer she has brought in world class performers both to Melbourne and Regional Victoria over various festivals created and curated by the Centre.

She is a resident of Melbourne and is constantly a participant in support and active initiative in the promotion of Indic values, culture and understanding of shared political and colonial narratives between Australia and India.

She is also a senior disciple of Smt Jyoti Hegde, a renowned only woman professional Rudra Veena exponent in the world. Rudra Veena is traditionally an essential part of Nad Yoga.

She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Melbourne in Social Policy and a Master’s degree in English Literature from Delhi University and Odissi dance from Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, New Delhi.

To find out more about Monica Singh Sangwan, please visit her website.