2020 Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program: Prasanna Kasthuri and Samanvit Kasthuri

It is with great pleasure that we continue with the roll out profiles of the 2020 Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (TAAP) teams of master artists and apprentices. Stay tuned for several updates in the next several days. [Be sure to click on hyperlinks for more of the story.]

Prasanna Kasthuri and Samanvita Kasthuri, Bharatanatyam and Kathak Dance

The Kasthuris join a special cadre of TAAP artists–teams who have dedicated time and space to intensively teach and study a tradition that is vital to their families. Guru Prasanna Kasthuri is well-known in St. Louis, in the Indian community and in the metro arts communities, where he has been active in programs supported by the Regional Arts Commission and the Missouri Arts Council. Through his work as an arts presenter and performing artist, Guru Kasthuri has both brought key Indian performing artists and events to Missouri and taken the Indian arts of metro St. Louis across the U.S. and Canada.

We are thankful to him and to his apprentice Samanvita for sharing this video recorded especially for the Missouri Folk Arts Program–an exhibition focusing on traditional dances, as well as her choreography.

Join us for the YouTube premier today, June 26, 2020 at 12 noon.

The heart of Missouri Folk Arts Program is its Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. Master artists work one-on-one with apprentices to keep folk arts knowledge and practices alive. In Missouri, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Missouri Arts Council, and the University of Missouri, the first master-apprentice lesson took place on December 10, 1984. Since then, Missouri has supported over 400 apprenticeships in which 200+ master artists have mentored more than 500 apprentices in every region and many communities in the state. Many apprentices have in their turn grown in their artistry and later recognized as master artists in TAAP. They forge anew living links in the chain of Missouri’s folk arts. Some TAAP artists practice traditional regional crafts that date back to Missouri’s Native American peoples and early European settlers. Some newer immigrants, such as Latinxs, Sudanese, and Bosnians, have sustained their artistic traditions in their new homes in Missouri. Still more traditions have migrated to Missouri from other regions of the U.S. All are re-imagined and honed into dynamic Show Me State traditions. Among the arts that have been fostered in TAAP over the decades are blacksmithing, cowboy poetry, old-time short-bow fiddling, African-American storytelling, Ozark Riverways paddle carving, Vietnamese dragon dancing, Western saddle making, old-time clawhammer banjo, wood joinery, square dance calling, German bobbin lace, turkey calls, Mexican paper flowers, and Slovenian button-box accordion.