Welcome to my site! Please read/watch. I’m Story Editor at Parabola, the US journal of myth/lit/philosophy/spirituality…& I’m President of Dances of India, one of the oldest classical Indian dance companies in the US. 2024-2025 is our 47th season!

DancesofIndiaStLouis.org

A little dance instruction I gave on Fox 2’s Studio STL on 11/15/21.

Please click here for a story called The Universal Pot that I told for the 2019 Arts & Faith concert at the Sheldon Theatre.

A clip of The Music of Water, based on a script I wrote for Dances of India.

  • And here is some of the programming I offer:

  • Performing—Classical Indian & folk dance Note: I do virtual performances/storytelling/speaking as well, due to COVID restrictions.

  • Storytelling—from Indian myth, folktales/religions from around the world, and more ‘realistic’ stories as well.

  • Public Speaking—-on history, religion, art, science, culture…these are my areas of particular interest.

  • Readings of my work

  • A combination of the above! I did a combo performance/talk on Dr. King & Gandhi for Pfizer and the employees were dancing! It was marvelous! And unexpected!

I’ve danced as long as I’ve walked, and written nearly as long as I’ve been able to craft twenty-six letters of the alphabet in my right hand. I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in the heart of the Midwest, in an era when no one knew anything about India. It was a magical time, when we were able to teach all kinds of individuals about the country from where my parents originated: India. Specifically, Bangalore (now Bengaluru), in South India.

My parents began a classical Indian dance company, Dances of India, in the late 1970’s. It is one of the oldest such companies in the US. {We will celebrate our 47th annual season in 2024-25. You can learn more about us here: www.dancesofindiastlouis.org} I’ve thus not only danced in our own productions every autumn, I’ve danced all over town, from schools to museums, from housing projects to corporations.

I started writing when I was very young (I recall winning a few story-writing contests in fourth grade!), but didn’t turn to writing seriously until I was in graduate school studying international relations. Well it turns out politics wasn’t for me; I ended up in the old Borders bookstore after school and decided to work on my first novel. After several years, and an 11-year stint at Barnes & Noble, I’ve ended up with three different novels,(a couple for kids, or for the kids in adults!) lots of poetry, short stories, and essays.

In addition to Parabola, I’ve been published in Panorama, the Journal of Intelligent Travel, (Panoramajournal.org ) Belt Press’ The Best of the Rust Belt, The St. Louis Anthology, and I am a March 2021 Featured Artist of the Missouri Arts Council! It’s an honor to be recognized by my home state.

In addition to dancing and writing, I am a storyteller. I’ve told stories for the Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri Humanities, the St. Louis Storytelling Festival Digital Decameron, Artists Standing Strong Together, and at many other local events, including emceeing classical Indian dance graduations.

As a writer, I am most certainly a reader. I am fascinated by so much of our stunning world: history, art, science, religion, language, culture.

As such I’ve been able to give talks at the Saint Louis Art Museum on the Silk Road, Buddhism/Hinduism, the sculpture of Degas/Sintenis/Kolbe, and South Asian Art, among other topics. I’ve also spoken for the Missouri History Museum on Gandhi & Dr. Martin Luther King, and on River Cities: how St. Louis, Paris, and Varanasi have been shaped by the glorious Mississippi, graceful Seine, and mythic, powerful Ganges. I also gave a 4-week seminar at Ladue Chapel on Hinduism/Buddhism for a couple of years.

Lastly, I spent one year in France (in Tours and Paris) studying French language, history, and art, one year in Japan (Yokohama) teaching Business English to employees at Makino Frice, Hitachi, Toshiba, etc, and three years in London, England, studying international relations/business. And of course, as influential in innumerable ways, if not more, are the many summers I spent in India as a child and teen. The word magical doesn’t do those experiences justice.

Please keep scrolling down to read some of my writing, see my CV, and just learn about what I do!

 

Our first-ever video flyer! Courtesy Mark Silverman our videographer.

Mike Oransky, photographer for most photos.