Asako Takami

🪔 About

Asako Takami (April 19, 1960 – November 3, 2007) was a highly regarded Odissi dancer of Japanese descent who dedicated her life to the Indian classical art form. Born in Niigata, Japan, she first encountered Indian dance at the age of 20 while studying art and Japanese design at Women's College of Fine Arts in Tokyo. Initially, she received basic training in Kathakali and Manipuri dance forms from Mina Kang in the early 1980s. However, a performance by the legendary Odissi dancer Sanjukta Panigrahi profoundly moved her, leading her to pursue Odissi as her life's profession. Takami began her formal Odissi training in 1983 with Kumkum Lal, who was visiting Tokyo at the time. She later traveled to India, making periodical six-month trips for 14 to 17 years to intensively train with Kumkum Lal in Delhi and with Kumkum Lal's guru, the creator of modern Odissi, Padma Vibhushan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, in Orissa. She also studied Odissi with Guru Gangadhar Pradhan and Guru Ramani Ranjan Jena at the Odissi Research Center. Her comprehensive training extended to Pakawaj with Guru Trinath Maharana in Delhi and Sanskrit with Dr. Masayuki Ohnishi. In 1991, Takami moved to San Francisco, USA, where she became a prominent figure in the Odissi community. She founded the Pallavi Dance Group in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1997, serving as its artistic director, and was actively involved in performing, teaching, and choreographing Odissi. Her performances were highly acclaimed; Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, publisher of Hinduism Today, described her as "the best Indian dancer I have seen, since the legendary Devija of Bali in the 1940s and 50s." In 2005, she served as a master artist in the Alliance for California Traditional Arts' Apprenticeship Program, mentoring Chaitee Sengupta. Takami also explored contemporary dance, performing in Ralph Lemon's "Tree, Part 2 in Geography Trilogy" in 2000. Asako Takami passed away on November 3, 2007, after a four-year battle with cancer.