SANSKRUTI TEACHERS
Krishna Zivraj-Nair: Bharatanatyam teacher and Bollywood dance instructor
Krishna is the founder and artistic director and headteacher of award-winning Sanskruti Cambridge. She is winner of One Dance Teaching Mentoring programme and ISTD Bursary Award in recognition for her teaching skills. In 2020, during COVID-19 pandemic, Krishna created a virtual avatar of Sanskruti called NavSanskruti to allow her young dance students to continue practicing and performing their art form. NavSanskruti was featured on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire as well as the BBC’s web series #BBCMakeADifference. Krishna also collaborated with Cambridge City Council to create online video tutorials for the wider community as a part of Cambridge South Asian History Month. She received another commission by Cambridge City Council to create a Diwali Dance Film with her students, which was released on Diwali.
Krishna and her students were selected by Akademi as one of the three dance schools in the UK to take part in Akademi’s Oral History Project. Krishna has also managed to make Sanskruti an ISTD exam centre with the first ever ISTD Bharatanatyam exams in Cambridge in 2020. Since then over 100 students have done their ISTD dance exams in Cambridge under her guidance from Primary grades 1-6 and Vocational grades foundation to Advanced II. In 2025, Krishna received her Licentiate qualification from ISTD.
In addition to Bharatanatyam, in a more relaxed and informal setting, Krishna continues to teach Bollywood style dance to adults and children. Her Bollywood dance students have performed not only in community settings but also in national and international dance competitions where they have won several awards.
Krishna’s teaching focusses on developing technique with a postive mindset, focus, paying attention to detail and overall wellbeing of her students. Under her tutelage, students have completed their arangetrams, auditioned and selected at national dance platforms such as U.Dance East regionals and ISTD’s Misrana showcase and a few of them have professional toured around the country with other leading national dance companies.
Anjali Das: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Anjali has been learning and performing Bharatanatyam from a very young age. As a child growing up in Dehli, India, she trained for 10 years with Gurus Smt. Gauri Sitaraman, Smt. Asha Muralidharan and Smt. Priya Venkataraman. At that point, she enjoyed dance but never really understood its importance in her life. It took her 24 years to get back to serious training with Guru. Krishna Zivraj-Nair at Sanskruti and she has been learning and performing with Sanskruti for the last 6 years.
Anjali’s most memorable performance was being back on stage for Shakti at Cambridge Junction in 2017 when she shared the stage with her daughter for the first time. While she continues to work and train hard building on her strength and technique, she has been actively performing at local festivals including Cambridge Big Weekend Festivals. She aims to reach out to a wider community with her dance and she has been fortunate to do so by performing at Cambridge Asian Mela, community Diwali celebrations and at London’s Mahalakshmi Temple for Mahashivratri celebrations just before the lockdown.
Anjali is currently learning Natyashastra techniques as part of her dance training with Krishna. She has completed ISTD Grade 3 and is planning to work towards ISTD vocational qualifications in Bharatanatyam.
Neethu Vivek: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Neethu has been learning Bharatanatyam from Guru Krishna Zivraj-Nair since 2019. She started learning the art form from the age of 7 in Kerala. She trained under Smt. Kunjumol and Smt. Najarani before she was under the tutelage of Kalamandalam Vijayakumari. She has performed solo and in group presentations at various festivals in India and won prizes at youth festival competitions. She also learnt Kuchipudi during her time in India. Her journey in learning the art form took a hiatus when she went to study medicine. She is currently preparing for her Arangetram under her Guru Krishna’s guidance in June 2022. Her passion is to delve deep into understanding this art form and has successfully completed ISTD Vocational Advance I level examinations.
Gayathiri Subramaniam: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Gayathiri has been learning Bharatanatyam under Guru Krishna Zivraj-Nair since 2019 at Sanskruti Cambridge. She is passionate about dance and has performed at several events locally, including Cambridge Big Weekend Festival, Mastana and NavSanskruti. She works full time as an Engineer and is a mother of two girls, also train under the same Guru.
Aarthi Arun: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Aarthi has been learning Bharatanatyam from her guru, Krishna Zivraj-Nair since 2008, performing at various events including Cambridge Big Weekend, U.Dance 2018 and the Yuva dance competition at London Southbank Centre in 2015. She has attended Bharatanatyam classes and workshops from Smt. Pushkala Gopal, Rukmini Vijayakumar, Guru Padma Murali and Prathiba Batley, as well as being mentored by Anusha Subramanian at the Yuva Gati CAT programme from 2015 – 2016. She kept in touch with dance during University through online workshops by Guru Madurai Muralidaran, and has completed her ISTD Grade 3 qualification. Aarthi enjoys many dance styles, including a short stint in Kathak with Sonia Sabri Dance Company.
Linnéa Husmann: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
Linnéa Husmann has been learning Bharatnatyam for eight years from her Guru, Krishna Zivraj-Nair. Linnéa has performed as part of Sanskruti School of Dance and YuvaGati, including the Cambridge Big Weekend festivals and the YuvaGati Summer showcases. In addition, she has performed solo at the Alchemy weekend (2015) and Navadal (2019) at the London South Bank Centre, completed ISTD Grade 3 with distinction and performed at U.Dance 2018 and 2019. Linnéa was recently awarded the Brackenbury Bursary Award from Impington Village College and the ISTD Junior Bursary Award 2019, competing nationally against dancers from many other strands, in recognition of her future potential in dance. In June 2019, she successfully completed her arangetram at the Junction in Cambridge.
Linnéa is a teaching assistant at our Orchard Park Bharatanatyam classes on Saturday mornings. She was the senior dance artist for Akademi’s Oral History project for which she created dance movement based on the testimonies collected by Sanskruti’s junior students. Alongside teaching, Linnea is also an upcoming professional dancer at Sanskruti Dance Company and has toured nationally with Sanskruti for Magical Honey. In addition, she also tours with other leading professional dance companies. Linnea has successfully completed ISTD’s Vocational Advanced II- the highest Vocational level exam offered by ISTD.
Martina Ghinetti: Bharatanatyam Teaching Assistant
“After a 10-year career as a competitive rhythmic gymnast in Italy, Martina has been learning Bharatanatyam since 2013 under Guru Krishna Zivraj-Nair at Sanskruti Cambridge. In 2016, she completed her Arangetram at Cambridge Junction, participated in YUVA – a national South Asian dance competition at Southbank Centre, London and attended summer intensives in Bangalore, India with Guru Padma Murali, (Padmalaya Dance Foundation) and Guru Rukmini Vijayakumar (Raadha Kalpa Dance Company).