‘Dance Genius’ has been used to describe more than once the fiery mix of beauty, brains, artistic ambiguity and tantalising sexual cheekiness that makes up the brilliance we know as Shakti. But Shakti is more than just a dancer ... she has become a beacon for those that wish to throw away the shackles of the world in which we live but never quite dare to. Shakti plays with the world as much as she plays with her audience. And it is very much her audience she aspires to please. I once suggested certain changes in a presentation. “But my audience expects me to be like that” she replied. And “like that” meant erotic, flaunting, writhing, sensuous and provocative all delivered with the energy of a long distance runner and the skill of a prima ballerina who said “to hell with the choreographer”. Shakti travels the world spreading what she sees as her message. Her ‘message’ is delivered through a variety of dance presentations ranging from the deep understanding needed for the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’ to her incredulous presentation of ‘Swan Lake’ where she manages to merge the White and Black Swan into two sides of the same person. Shakti’s dance style developed into a uniqueness of her own from early tuition by her parents. Her father Professor S.N. Chakravarty was a professor of English at Kyoto University and founder of the Gandhi Institute which taught Indian philosophy, culture and language. Her mother, VasantaMala, is Japanese and was the first to bring the true form of Indian dance to Japan. She is the founder of her own Indian Dance Institute in Kyoto and Tokyo and sometimes tours with Shakti designing her lighting and presentations. She views her daughter with an inscrutinable oriental eye but ‘disapproval’ is kept for private thoughts and moments. Few daughters can be blessed with such a mother. Shakti was taught Indian classical dance by her at the age of three and studied under the foremost gurus of India. She studied yoga with her father. An MA in Indian Philosophy at Columbia University in New York where she also studied modern dance under Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey and jazz dance legend Luigi. Mixed with the dance style of the culture she was born into, the Shakti we know today was formed and developed. Yogic breathing techniques enable her to expend incredible energy on stage where no performance is precisely the same. “I never look in a mirror like a western dancer checking the line, because if you do you’ll never get it right”. I once heard a bemused UK local radio interviewer trying to clarify Shakti’s dance style: “It’s like a jazz musician” Shakti explained. “Once they have played a note it is gone ... it’s like we are talking now. What you say is on the spur of a moment, an expression of what we feel, and then it is gone and can never be repeated in quite the same way again. You have a conversation with your audience ... so do I but in dance”. I see the interviewer on a regional TV station now and again and often wonder if she was ever quite the same way again ! From Japanese Temples, Moscow’s Russia Concert Hall, Versailles’ Palais des Congres to New York’s Lincoln Centre, Shakti’s world travels takes her to places other dancers would not reach. She treads the festival trail in Montreal, Avignon, Australia and Edinburgh where she will be again this year performing the Bharata Natyam, a classical Indian Hindu Temple Dance and “The Woman in the Dunes”, a presentation of Kobo Abe’s novel which legendary musician of the London punk scene, Steven Severin, created the music for. Its world premier at London’s ICA in May proved a triumph and yet more critical acclaim. It is an amusing thought that when Royal processions proceed down The Mall swirling around them is sand Shakti used on stage and with it the spirit of Shakti in each grain of sand. Ever a glutton for artistic punishment, as if shackled by the chains she sometimes dances with as she eyes her audience with a knowing look, sometimes sultry, sometimes glistening with erotic pleasure, Shakti founded and organises The Garage Theatre annually for Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival. Entertainers from all over the world congregate to perform in either of the three venues within Venue 81 at the Grindlay Court Centre. And from Japan come entertainers under Shakti’s ‘Japan Experience’ baton. Shakti is, indeed, a “True taste of modern Japan”. A mixture of traditional and modern with a jet setting global encompassment of the world in an intoxicating whirl to view, to reflect, to influence, to move on but always, always to return home where her heart and head really is. Maybe Shakti will settle down one day, but when most women are looking to settle down to post-menopausal ‘retirement’, Shakti is out there challenging and frustrating the norm, breaking the barriers of acceptability, changing the definitions of love itself and that which society has based itself on. Someone once said that Isaac Newton was neurotic, tortured, suspicious and a loner like all genius’ should be. But Shakti is not that. She even redefines the description of ‘genius’, but has one thing in common with all genius’ ... a one off. Savour her whilst you can, we may never quite see her like again.                  (G. King- director /Southwest Anglo-Japanese Society / UK)