Dr Leena Menon

Founder and Director

Leena a Doctor by profession with a love for dance since an early age. She completed her arangetram under the tutelage of Late Guru Smt Padmini Ramachandran in 1986 and has several performances to her credit.

With a view to promoting this beautiful and rich art form to the younger generation she founded Samarpan Nrithyalaya , under the tutelage of Santosh G Nair in 2017. Her vision was to promote Indian classical dance in its purest form.

The school was formerly called Dakshin, which was founded in 2012 under Guru Kalamandalam Sruthi.

We focus on performing and teaching Bharatanatyam, an Indian classical dance form to the local community of South Wales.

Ms Santosh G Nair

Teacher

Ms Santosh G Nair is a well established Bharatanatyam artist with many years of experience in performing and teaching this art form. She is currently doing her PhD in the same field at Liverpool Hope University.

Santosh has been the recipient of the National Balashree Honour for creative performance by the President of India, the youngest child civilian award at the age of 14. She has received the Yuva Nritya Ratna award supported by Milapfest and Arts Council, UK. She is a Graded Doordarshan artist.

Santosh has received the international scholarship for intense training from Milapfest in 2017. She has also performed at Navodit, for which she had an outstanding review and a great applause(Pulse 132 Spring 2016). She is an empanelled artist of SPICMACAY.

To her credit, she has performed at many prestigious platforms including the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Kartik Fine Arts, National Bal Bhavan, Chidambaram Natyanjali Festival.

Having trained under the able guidance of Guru V S Ramamorthy and Guru Smt Manjula Ramaswamy , she is currently under the guidance of Guru Priyadarshini Govind.

She has been a speaker performer at TEDX Coventry and has authored two books in the field of dance for children.Santosh extends her passion for dance by teaching and working along different workshops.