dance_movement artist_

Amisha Kumra, also known as "Misha," is a dynamic movement artist hailing from Oslo, Norway, with roots from Punjab, India. Her artistic journey encompasses a wide array of disciplines which makes her move through dance, choreography, acting, modeling, DJing, teaching and facilitating encounters of movement. Misha has a background and practice in various dance and cultures such as hiphop, house, popping, waacking, contemporary, ballet, bollywood, bhangra (north Indian folk dance), and kathak (north Indian classical dance).

In her experience as a movement artist she has choreographed and/or danced in collaboration with 35th Biennale of São Paulo, Modern Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, The dutch national opera, The norwegian opera and ballet, Foundation hiphop center Amsterdam, The norwegian theater, Oslo spektrum, Quick style studio, and several artists such as Kerri Chandler, Karpe, Isac Elliot and Ila Arun. In addition, she works with TV commercials, modeling jobs and as an dance and culture educator, dj and event planner.

Currently, Amisha is focused on developing her own artistic choreographic practice, merging her diverse experiences with her Indian heritage to create unique and authentic spaces of sensorial theater performances (“see artistic practice”).

Timeline

In 2014 Amisha started teaching Bollywood and Bhangra classes and also came in contact with the street and club style communities in Oslo after going to Edvard Munch high school with dance. In addition to her love for music, social dances and being a clubhead she delved deeper into street and club-style cultures at Flow Dance Academy in Oslo and Paris (2019-2020) learning from Serial stepperz, Artizans and Mouvmatik.

In 2020, Misha moved to Amsterdam to pursue a bachelor's degree in "Expanded Contemporary Dance" at the Amsterdam University of Arts. During her time there, she immersed herself in somatic movement practices and theory. In addition, she discovered her community at Foundation Hiphop Center.  From 2022, Misha taught hiphop and house classes at Foundation and Foundation Vooropleidning ROC MBO, which further developed her pedagogical skills in cultural practices.

In the 4th year of her studies, 2023-2024 she was invited to Brazil for 3 months to work with choreographer Mario Lopes on various performances and productions in the context of the 35th São Paulo Biennale. Later she also traveled to Nashik, India to delve even deeper into her own culture. She spent 8 weeks delving into the Kathak with her teacher Vidya Deshpande, a student of Birju Maharaj ji. This year resulted in planting the first seeds of her artistic practice “peeling my purple onion” <see artistic practice>