Biography

Kirsten Newell is rapidly becoming a prominent dancer throughout Scotland. Her training in ballet and contemporary instilled in her a passion for dance from a young age and in 2006 she began training in Edinburgh with Priya Srikumar; it was from here that her connection with India began. Kirsten went initially to Attakalari Centre for Movement Arts in Bangalore, India. Her love of the form and desire to perfect the technique led her onto the renowned Kalakshetra Foundation, Chennai, India. For four years, she immersed herself fully in the essence of Bharatanatyam, its culture and tradition and graduated in 2013 with a first class degree.

Since returning to Scotland, Kirsten has spent the past 10 years working as a professional dancer honing these skills and developing her creative abilities within productions throughout the UK, India and abroad. There have been several notable productions that she has been part of in the last few years that deal with the contemporisation of Bharatanatyam. These projects include working with celebrated artists such as Subathra Subramaniam, Akademi, Leela Samson, Shane Shambhu, Seeta Patel, ATMA Dance Company, Srishti Dance Creations, Mathangi Keshavan and Vyuti Dance Company.

Kirsten is passionate about bringing exciting, collaborative, innovative and high quality South Asian dance to the U.K. Kirsten recently co-directed and choreographed MaMa which has toured throughout Scotland and internationally.

She is lead artist for Hebridean Treasure: Lost & Found which is about to tour Scotland for the second time.

In 2019 Kirsten began working with Oxana Banshikova. As Kalakshetra graduates with 15 years experience, and under their ‘Cosmic Dance School’ umbrella, they have worked together to grow, popularise and make Bharatanatyam accessible as well as offer high quality innovative dance in its traditional and modern form in Scotland.