browse tags
Authors

Colleena Shakti

Portrait of Colleena   Shakti

Colleena Shakti is a sacred dance performer based in Rajasthan (India) and Greece.

As a teacher, founder of the Shakti School Dance, and as a performer wishing to bring together yoga practice and entertaining folk or court dance, Colleena has been a major actor on the Rajasthan cultural scene, rekindkling ancestral dance forms, with an accent on Khatak and Odissi (perhaps the oldest of India’s classical dance forms, earlier performed in the temples of Odisha).

Learn more and read Supriya Nayak’s essay on Odissi dance.


Related Glossary

Glossary Terms

  • Shakti, Śakti

    sk शक्ति shakti "spear", "ornemental blade", "power", "strength"

    Śakti (शक्ति) is the "active" aspect of a Hindu deity, the "energy" emanating from it. In the case of Shiva [Śiva], his shakti is feminine, often personified as the goddess Devi, and has three aspects: creative energy (Shakti), peaceful, harmonious space (Pārvatī), destructive as time caan be (Kālī).

    Śakti is the all-important goddess of Tantra, in charge of the creation, expansion and destruction of the universe. Puruṣa comes second, yet Śakti cannot accomplish the work of creation of the universe without Puruṣa. 

View all glossary terms →