About The Production:

Tale As Old As Time isn't just another dance production. It's a riveting re-telling of one of Disney's hit classics, Beauty and the Beast. Belle's timeless story will be narrated through the lens of the modern woman, blending the elegance of bellydance vocabulary with a kaleidoscope of other dance formats. The result? India's first ever bellydance musical and a spectacle that promises to take you to a world of wonder and enchantment, curated by bellydance professional and artist, Shruti Narayanan.

Who Are We?

Samai Oriental Dance Company was made official in 2019. Prior to its inception, Shruti spent years doing careful research, rigorous training with teachers around the world and designing a comprehensive, holistic dance module that would then go on to become the basis of the SODC approach to bellydance education. Our vision, from the start, has been to highlight the historical, political and cultural aspects of the dance, giving it equal importance as we do to technical dance training. Today SODC is one of the most internationally-recognized Indian belly dance academies, with a fully-backed international syllabus & certifications.

About The Organizer

Shruti Narayanan is the Director of Samai Oriental Dance Company and is an internationally-acclaimed performing artist, choreographer, certified Egyptian folklore teacher and instructor from Bengaluru, India. She has been performing and teaching belly dance for over a decade and began her dance journey at the tender age of 4 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.  Shruti has a keen interest in the socio-political, cultural and historical aspects of Oriental, North African and Middle Eastern dances and spends a great deal of time working on historical reconstructions of dances from the early 1900s. She is also known for her choreographies and dances inspired by the Golden and Transition Eras in Egypt and her dances using the Reda technique and style. She is currently the only certified practitioner for Muwashahat in India. She additionally holds an IDTA Dance Associate Certification (200 Hours), the Drumzy Foundation Programme Level 1 by Hossam and Serena Ramzy certifications, the prestigious Journey Through Egypt certifications, 1 to 3 by Sahra C. Kent and has recently been conferred the honour of being ambassador of the Reda technique and style in India. In 2021, she was also recognized as the Top 100 Women Icons of India by the Foxclues Network for her performance and teaching work in the field of bellydance.

Shruti is actively committed to imparting a well-rounded education in bellydance, going beyond the technicalities of the dance style. She has a number of dance productions to her credit. Her projects and productions are a reflection of her desire to preserve the essence of the dance form through various mediums, while engaging the audience in the diversity of bellydance and its deep historical legacy. You will find that her body of work is largely informative, socially-relevant and elegantly designed. She has presented performances at various international festivals and platforms across India, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Italy and has taught at prestigious online platforms and events such as Bwitchs International Festival, Kan Zaman Golden Era Music and Dance Festival and has also been the Jury for the first ever, International Raqs Film Festival, curated by Kamala Almanazar. Apart from being a dancer, Shruti is a classically-trained singer, professional Tarot Reader, a certified Reiki practitioner and holds degrees in Business Management, Arts Management and Egyptology.