About Smt Preetilekha D Chowdhury

Professional Achievements

Under the tutelage and guidance of distinguished Gurus (Guru Garima Hazarika and Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra in Odissi and Dr Kesavananda Deva Goswami, Dr Jagannath Mahanta and Adhyapak Naren Barua in Sattriya), Preetilekha Chowdhury has given numerous solo stage performances in both Odissi and Sattriya at various prestigious dance festivals throughout the country since 1991. She was regularly involved in the lecture demonstrations of Sattriya Dance under the guidance of Late Dr Kesavananda Deva Goswami since 2001 in prestigious cultural summits like CCRT, NSD, Sattra Mahasabha, Sangeet Natak Akademi etc. She was also invited to perform Sattriya by the Assam Sahitya Sabha, United Kingdom in 2019 and has held a Sattriya workshop there. Preetilekha is a Grade artist of Doordarshan and a recipient of the prestigious Junior Fellowship for the year 2010-11 as well as Senior Fellowship for the year 2020-21 by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, for undertaking research oriented projects in Sattriya Dance. In recognition of her contribution to Indian Classical Dance, she has also been honored with the “Kala Bhusan Award – 2018” in Nanded (Maharashtra), the “Kala Tirth Puraskar 2018” in Rajkot( Gujarat) , the “Jaipur Ratan Samman 2021 ” in Jaipur (Rajasthan) , “ Shailush Samman” at Benaras (Uttar Pradesh) in 2021 , “Kala Shree Award – 2022” in Nanded (Maharashtra) and “Nritya Nipun “ in Mumbai 2023 in recognition of her contribution to Indian Classical Dance. She has also been awarded the Savyasachi Educator Award 2020 in Mumbai in the category danceOdissi & Sattriya . She has been a jury member of the prestigious International Classical Dance Festival organized online by EICD , Rajasthan during 20-21 and Season 2 during 21-22. Preetilekha has a Masters in Anthropology from Guwahati University and is an examiner with CCRT and Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Maharashtra for Odissi and CCRT and Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Pune for Sattriya . She is also involved in teaching the Odissi & Sattriya dance forms to several students in Maharashtra in her institute “Krishna Nilayam” and also overseas students from Malaysia, Belgium, South Africa and Canada . Some of her students have performed Sattriya & Odissi in festivals like Natyanjali Festival- Mumbai, IIDF- Pune , Ganga Mahotsav – Benares , Athavotsav -Mumbai and dance festivals in Kolkata and Malayasia etc . To spread awareness about the form of Sattriya, she has also organized and conceptualized “Kirti Yashya 2019”, a Sattriya dance and music festival in collaboration with Sangeet Mahabharati, Juhu as a tribute to Late Dr KD Goswami, noted Sattriya scholar.