About the Founder

About the Founder

Ragasudha Vinjamuri is currently Associate Lecturer at the University of Sunderland in London with the Faculty of Business and Law. Born in Hyderabad, India, she is a post-graduate in Tourism and Hospitality Management and comes from a family who patronised arts and literature. She has learnt dance from Guru Dr Uma Rama Rao in Hyderabad and has relocated to London in 2006.

She has made substantial contributions to Art, Culture and Heritage scene in the UK. She is applauded well for her choreographic work in public context involving, and not limited to, young participants and women from a variety of backgrounds. She has the distinction of representing Britain as Cultural Coordinator and performer at the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity and during two World Telugu Conventions inaugurated and concluded by consecutive honourable Presidents of India, in Tirupathi of Andhra Pradesh and in Hyderabad of Telangana states, in 2012 and 2017 respectively. She has carved a niche for herself and broken barriers in taking Indian dancing to a variety of subjects and occasions and used dance as a tool to create awareness on several matters, including environmental advocacy and raising social conscience. She initiated “Jalaanjali” for spreading awareness about water management and has been holding panel discussions on the subject at the Houses of British Parliament for the past 4 years. In June 2019, she became the site leader and choreographer for London where she along with her team of dancers was part of Global Water Dances, a world-wide dance done at more than 120 locations in 6 continents at the same time for raising issues connected with water such as pollution, scarcity and fracking.

For her contributions to Art and Culture, she has been conferred awards, citations and titles by different organisations, some of which include:

  • British Citizen Award for contributions to Art and post nominals BCAa in 2021
  • Dr Sarojini Naidu International Award by Asian Academy of Arts in 2020
  • Natyakala Tejasvini by Telugu Association of Sutton in 2019
  • Global Innoventure Award by Lit O Fest in 2018
  • Natya Kala Sudha in 2018
  • Woman Achiever Award at Women Enterprise Summit-WES 2018 (given in collaboration with the Ministry of SME, Government of India).
  • Nritya Kala Shiromani by Indo-UK Cultural Forum in 2017
  • Saptapadi Dr C Narayana Reddy Memorial award by Sruthi Laya Academy in 2017
  • Nrutya Nagaja by Telugu Association of Switzerland in 2016
  • Pravasi Stree Shakti (Woman Power) by American Telangana Association (ATA) in 2016
  • Kala Vaaradhi (Cultural Bridge) by United Kingdom Telugu Arts (UKTA) in 2009
  • Award for Cultural Excellence by Telugu Association of London (TAL) in 2008
  • Short-listed for AWA Asian Woman Achiever awards 2017: Ragasudha has been one of the five finalists short-listed in Award for Art and Culture section from nominations received from 30 Asian countries, for the prestigious AWA Awards.
  • Entry into Limca Book of World Records in 2018

She has been lauded for being the only artiste who has performed at both the Houses of British Parliament for 24 times (as of November 2019). She was invited twice to present dance at the European Parliament in Brussels. She has received appreciation for presenting Indian classical dance and bringing out stories on niche topics of social and cultural importance such as Music Therapy, impact of Dance on mental and physical health, Ayurveda, Non-Violence, Woman Empowerment, Water Conservation, Mother’s Challenges, the state of Hunger etc.

She believes in empowerment of participants and communities through knowledge creation and joy through performing arts.Under the banner “Sanskruti Centre”, she imparts cultural education to the young and stands out to be the first to train and perform various folk and tribal dances of India. She also conducts workshops in various schools in the UK on the importance of Dance and Story Telling in mythology. 

Apart from giving her own classical dance presentations, she teaches and promotes rarely performed folk/tribal dances of India, with an objective of preservation of original heritage. She popularised the theme “Dance and Development” marking International Dance Day dedicated to tribal culture and empowerment. Coinciding with the UN’s International Decade for People of African Descent, she trained women to showcase rare dance form of Siddi tribe, an Indo African community that has more than 300-year-old history of migrating and living in India.

She has published various articles, short stories and poems in different publications in India, UK, Mauritius and USA, including her poems book Kavita Ragasudha. Her story in the backdrop of Haiti earthquake (in her mother tongue Telugu) received much appreciation. She has translated Telugu stories and poems into English for the University of Wyoming, USA. She has published transcription of 300-year-old composition “Yatirajasekhara Vachanamulu” present on palm leaf folios in the possession of British Library. The book was released at an event at the House of Commons of British Parliament in 2016, marking 999th birth anniversary of Acharya Ramanuja. She has also researched and published how Indian languages such as Telugu and Marathi were taught by British scholars in the UK in 1830s, much before managed migration has started to Britain.