Rita Ganguly is an exponent in the Indian classical arts.
23 Facts About Rita Ganguly
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Rita Ganguly is the mother of actress Meghna Kothari and the of younger sister of the famous Ravindra Sangeet singer Gita Ghatak.
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Rita Ganguly therefore grew up in Lucknow, where the newspaper was based.
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Rita Ganguly started learning Rabindrasangeet at the age of 12 under Gopeshwar Banerjee.
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Rita Ganguly later joined Visva-Bharati University, along with her elder sister, Gita Ghatak with an emphasis on the arts whilst studying the Indian classical dance forms of Kathakali and Manipuri.
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Rita Ganguly did further studies in Kathakali under renowned gurus, Kunchu Kurup and Chandu Pannikar and trained in modern dance at Martha Graham School, New York.
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Rita Ganguly performed at various stages including the Bolshoi Theatre, Russia and joined the National School of Drama as a faculty member of dance where she is known to have introduced a new course of Movement and Mime.
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Rita Ganguly taught at NSD for thirty years and during her tenure there, she is known to have contributed in productions and costume designing.
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Rita Ganguly is credited with efforts in the recreation of the classical theatre and in the construction of Vikrishta Madhyam Auditorium.
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Rita Ganguly is a Ford Foundation Fellow and has a doctoral degree for her thesis on the female singers of Indian subcontinent.
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Rita Ganguly produced a multimedia production, Ruh-e-ishq, incorporating the seven stages of Sufism, in 1997, to celebrate the fifty years of Indian Independence.
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Rita Ganguly is known to have a liking for nazms, a genre of Urdu poetry and has composed music for the poems of such Bengali poets as Jibanananda, Shakti Chattopadhyay, Subhash Mukherjee, Shankho Ghosh, Sunil Gangopadhyay and Joy Goswami.
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Rita Ganguly was involved with the Soumitra Chatterjee production, Homapakhi for which she composed the theme song.
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Rita Ganguly has acted in Darmiyaan, a feature film by Kalpana Lajmi.
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Rita Ganguly has performed at the Festival of India events held in UK and France.
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Rita Ganguly is the author of a number of books related to art and music such as Bismillah Khan and Benaras, the Seat of Shehnai and Ae Mohabbat.
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Rita Ganguly is the founder of Kaladharmi, a non-profit organization to promote young talents in arts and the Begum Akhtar Academy of Ghazal, an academy for nurturing Ghazal tradition which has instituted annual awards to recognize excellence in Ghazal music.
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Rita Ganguly received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for music in 2000.
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Rita Ganguly is a recipient of Priyadarshi Award, Rajiv Gandhi Shiromani award, Critics Circle of India award and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Broadcasters Association of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
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Rita Ganguly is the founder of Kaladharmi, a non-profit organization for the promotion of performing arts and Begum Akhtar Academy of Ghazals, a ghazal academy.
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Rita Ganguly was married to Keshav Kothari, a former secretary of Sangeet Natak Akademi and the couple has two children, son Arijeet a poet and a daughter, Meghna Kothari who is an actress in Hindi films.
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Rita Ganguly appeared in the film Parineeta and is credited for the song Dhinak-Dhinak-Dha composed by Shantanu Moitra penned by Swanand Kirkire.
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Rita Ganguly has sung for the film Sarkar the song Deen Bandhu.