Farah khan children

What is it like to look back on your very first experience of kathak dance? What encouraged you to take your first kathak class with Pandit Chitresh Das, and what was your very first class with him like?

Born and raised in Salinas, California, at some point I may have heard of kathak, but knew little to nothing about it. Though I danced as a child, I didn’t have access to the arts of South Asia for learning purposes. From the age of 5 until 18, I trained in ballet, jazz and baton twirling. I had been exposed to the music of India and Pakistan growing up – some classical, light classical, Ghazal, and quite a bit of Qawwali. My parents would take us to concerts, and though I didn’t realize it then, I was being introduced to living legends of various musical genres of South Asia. 

It was when I was in my first year of college at San Francisco State University that I was itching to get into a dance class as it was the only form of physical activity I had known growing up. Seeing that “Classical Dance of India” was o

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