Malabika Guha grew up in Kolkata and Shantiniketan, India where her training of more than two decades in Creative and Kathak dance began. She is a disciple of Guru Bela Arnob in Kolkata, India and was a student under Amala Shankar at Uday Shankar India Cultural Center where she was also in the advanced tour troupe. In 1969, Malabika graduated from Patha Bhavan School in Shantiniketan with Honors in Bengali and a High Secondary focus in Sitar and went on to earn a BA in Bengali with a main elective in dance from Rabindra Bharathi University in Kolkata in 1973. She completed her masters in Bengali at Calcutta University in 1977. Once Malabika moved to the United States, she attended Parsons School of Design and graduated with an Associate’s degree in Interior Design. In 1986, she followed her dream to found Kalamandir of New Jersey, a dance school based in Kathak and creative dance. She received recognition of excellence in Community leadership in 1989 from the Mayor of Jersey City and in 2014 at the North American Bengali Conference in Orlando and in 2023 in Atlantic City, NJ, among many other Lifetime Achievement and democratically-voted city accolades over the decades. She has traveled with her school throughout the US and with her advanced troupe to India, London, Canada, Spain, as well as throughout the US.
After 20 years of dance training and over 30 years of directing the tri-state area’s most well-known Indian dance school, Malabika decided to take on a new endeavor: Kalamandir Dance Company. Her idea was to create a collaborative establishment where after many years of classical training, synthesis with contemporary elements could open a new world of possibilities: a reflection of her own dance experience. Now, she has handed the school to her daughter and protégé, Brinda Guha, and is enjoying retired life as a guest choreographer, crafter, traveler and cook.
“I dream one day my students will feel the dedication I have seen in my guru’s eyes. They will experience the sensation of being immersed in a larger universe with a sense of creative joy as my teachers in Shantiniketan made me feel. And they will feel the team spirit and camaraderie I have felt as a part of Uday Shankar’ India Culture’s troupe. Greatest of all, they will feel the sense of freedom a true dancer always feels; a freedom above the mundane, the ordinary, and the four walls of our daily existence.”
