Renowned Sattriya dancer from Guwahati, Dr. Menaka PP Bora recently met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi as a specially invited guest.

Dr. Bora was specially invited to meet with the PM as a Young Leader of India – United Kingdoms (UK) relations.

She is a professional Bharatnatyam and Sattriiya dancer who was taught by her mother and guru, Indira PP Bora, a disciple of Rukmini Arundale. Her mother was the first woman to get into an exclusive domain of men, Sattriya.

The efforts of the mother-daughter duo led to the Sangeet-Natak Akademi to recognize ‘Sattriya Nritya’ as another classical dance of India.

Maneka Bora was trained in Bharatnatyam by the famous Dhananjayans. She also learned kalaripayattu, the Kerala martial art form, from the renowned dancer and choreographer Chandralekha.

She was appointed as an artist-in-residence at the University of Oxford and an Elected Fellow of Royal Asiatic Society. She is also an empanelment artist under the Indian Council For Cultural Relations (ICFCR) under Sattriya category.

Dr. Bora had also famously performed Sattriya at the iconic Royal Albert Hall in London in 2019.

She was conferred with the prestigious Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar 2009 (highest national young artiste award in India) by Sangeet Natak Akademi. She became the first Indian to conduct an ethno-musicological research related to Indian classical dance at Faculty of Music in Oxford University.