In August of 2023, Samanvita was selected to perform at Battery Dance Festival as apart of their program "Young Voices in Dance, which highlighted youth choreographers. She performed her self-choreographed and composed piece, "Krtghna". Krtaghna" was originally a piece Samanvita was commissioned to make for Saint Louis University's Literary Arts Award Ceremony. The piece talks about environmentalism through the story of Mother Earth, raising mankind and nurturing him endlessly, only for man to destroy the natural resources given to him by the Earth. Heartbroken, but left with no choice, Mother Earth burns up and destroys the world. "Krtaghna", translating to "Ungrateful" serves as a cautious warning to humans and how we treat the Earth.

 

 

A video highlighting Samanvita's recent performances from 2022-2023. This is a short video including clips of the recent performances that she has been apart of in the last year. The first clip is a Jatiswaram performed in St. Louis as apart of Soorya Performing Arts Natya Festival. The last two clips are from a performance hosted by Anusham Arts Academy in Chennai, the first being a clip from the Varnam "Aadum Daivum" and the second one an ashtapadi called "Rase Harimiha Vihita Vilasam".

 

Samanvita Kasthuri is currently a choreography captain of Saint Louis University's premier Bollywood Fusion Team, SLU Shakti. On April 15th, 2023, Shakti qualified for Desi Dance Network's National Dance Competition, which included the top 8 collegiate teams in the entire nation. Samanvita shared a large responsibility of the choreography, theme, and execution of this performance, along with her other co-captains. Samanvita was also awarded the "Best Dancer" award at Legends National Dance Championship.

 

 

Samanvita was awarded a grant called the Summer Award from the Fine and Performing Arts Program at Saint Louis University. Using this grant, she financed a project that involved the help of three other musicians to create a piece that speaks about the struggles of mental health. This dance uses the song "I'm Tired" by Labrinth, but with Indian elements, such as using the Mrudangam and having nattuvangam, or spoken word syllables used in Bharatanatyam. This was composed and choreographed by Samanvita Kasthuri, accompanied by Jameson Falconer on vocals, Akash Nandakumar on drums, Madhava Paliyam on mrudangam, and video editing was done by Emma Glose.

 

In January of 2021, Samanvita created a dance project called "Dance There Upon the Shore". This piece was originally from Guru Prasanna Kasthuri's production "Rainbow 2", where he took literary works from the Western world and added it to Indian dance and music. The production features poems from Maya Angelou and Shakespeare. Dance There Upon the Shore is based of off W. B. Yeats' "To a Child dancing in the Wind". This piece uses excerpts of the poem to compare the beautiful moments life to the scary, dangerous moments in life. The poet warns a child of the uncertain and dangerous future, but Samanvita decided to add a positive spin to this rendition, saying that people can be brave and tread the monstrous waves of life.

 

A performance video for the Folk Arts Apprenticeship program, hosted by the University of Missouri. Out of 500 apprentices and teachers who applied, Samanvita was chosen to accept the grant on behalf of Prasanna Kasthuri and Soorya Performing Arts. (2020)

 

Samanvita performing a self choreographed dance to Sango's "Tamborzao"

 

Samanvita performing her self choreographed and self composed piece, “Equal” on the Fabulous Fox Stage in 2019 as apart of the Teen Talent Competition.