Dance Into the Heart of Tara: A Weekend Program with Prema Dasara

Prema Dasara is the founder of Tara Dhatu. Using the vehicles of sacred song and dance, Prema has traveled throughout the world in dedicated service to humanity. Her purpose has been to inspire and uplift, inviting everyone to experience the power of their own human potential through sacred music and dance. Participants in her workshops benefit from her many years of study and practice on the spiritual path. Her joy, exuberance, and friendliness draw everyone who works with her into heart full participation. “I must have danced out of my mother’s womb,” says Prema, who began formal ballet training at the age of three. She soon abandoned the formalities to dance on her own, like her idol Isadora Duncan, as a personal expression in nature. She dipped in and out of western expressions of dance but did not return to formal classes until she went to India in 1976 and became a student of Ramani Ranjan Jena, a master of the Odissi style of Classical Indian Temple Dance. During the six years she spent in India, she worked as an editor for the Theosophical Society, immersing herself in the study of comparative religion. To complement her dance training, she studied Classical Indian Music. She studied Sanskrit to deepen her understanding of the Hindu Culture. In 1983 she settled in Hawaii where she became a student of the Tibetan Buddhist meditation master, Lama Sonam Tenzin. He encouraged her to continue her sacred dance work which culminated in the creation of the Mandala Dance of the 21 Praises of Tara, a group ritual based on the profound mind training practices of Tibetan Buddhism. She has traveled the world since 1986, teaching this dance and the accompanying meditations. She has been invited to present the ritual to many of the most accomplished Tibetan Lamas including His Holiness the Dalai Lama who proclaimed the dance, “wonderful”. Prema continues to create dance rituals. For inspiration and authenticity, she studied Charya, the ritual dance of Nepali Buddhists, a style based on Odissi movement but dedicated to Buddhist practice. She studied Tibetan Lama dancing at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts, and sacred Balinese dance from the Queen of Peliatan in Bali. Prema teaches with humor and clarity. She leads anyone who participates in her work into an experience of their own potential, and teaches simple, clear methods of developing this wisdom in their day to day life.