Rachna curates a first-of-its-kind festival of Indian classical arts taking place at 92nd Street Y's Harkness Dance Center 2025/26 Mainstage Series, Women Moves the World. Rachna’s vision for this festival is to gather extraordinary women from the worlds of North and South Indian classical music, dance, poetry, and percussion — artists deeply steeped in the integrity and discipline of their forms through lifelong devotion, while also thoughtfully engaging in bold, cross-genre collaborations. These collaborations reveal the artistic and cultural commonalities that flow across borders, while honoring the differences that make our diversity and plurality so rich, beautiful, and expansive.

Throughout the day, the festival will also feature a community fair — a gathering of South Asian food, textiles, crafts, and jewelry that reflects the fine arts of South Asian community and culture.

The festival culminates with the long-awaited New York premiere of SPEAK — a groundbreaking rhythmic dialogue between kathak and tap, created and performed by Rachna Nivas, Rukhmani Mehta, Michelle Dorrance, Dormeshia. This project is being remounted afer premiering and touring 2017-2020. SPEAK celebrates lineage and liberation, rhythm and womanhood — a conversation across form, culture, and history.

MORE DETAILS OF FULL FESTIVAL LINE-UP TO COME SOON!