Jahnavi Vishnubhotla, a senior at Ladue Horton Watkins High School, has been accepted into the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program.
The program funds master artist and apprentice teams who are committed to sustaining their artistic traditions and cultural heritage; it is funded primarily by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Jahnavi is one of only eight people in Missouri to be accepted into the program this year.
She will work with a dance teacher, or guru, through intensive classes focused on an Indian classical dance form called Kathak, which originated in northern India.
The classes will prepare Jahnavi for her arangetram, or dance graduation, in which she performs six hours of continuous dancing consisting of both pre-composed and improvised dances.
Her apprenticeship will last about one year.
Missouri’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program was established in 1984 and is one of the oldest, continuous statewide folk arts apprenticeship programs in the country.
More than 500 artists have participated in the program in a variety of artforms since the program’s inception.