First MFA in Dance Degree in Minnesota Awarded to Parisha Rajbhandari
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Parisha Rajbhandari (left) works with student Joaquin Warren during a rehearsal for her thesis presentation "A-Part."
By Corrie Eggimann
Department of Performing Arts
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Parisha Rajbhandari graduated this month with her Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance from Minnesota State University, Mankato. This is the first MFA in Dance degree awarded in the state of Minnesota.
Parisha grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal. She described growing up with dance and music as a culturally significant part of her childhood, “dance isn’t something that has to be sought out, it’s just part of life.”
While dance is culturally significant in Nepal, it generally is not considered a profession. Parisha’s parents were supportive of her moving to the US and studying dance, and they also encouraged her to pursue additional academic interests. Parisha enrolled at Minnesota State University, Mankato as an undergraduate student in the fall of 2015. Parisha’s aunt attended MSU as a computer science student, and still lives in Minnesota, so MSU felt like a good option to Parisha as a young international student. Parisha graduated in May 2020 with a bachelor's degree in dance and a minor in psychology and business.
In the summer of 2019, Parisha applied and got accepted to the Summer Dance Intensive with Ananya Dance Theatre in St. Paul, MN. Parisha credits her dance professor and mentor, Professor Emerita Dr. Julie Kerr-Berry, with encouraging her to get involved with Ananya Dance Theatre. After the Summer 2019 intensive, Parisha began training with the company in December of 2019, and in January of 2020, Parisha was invited to officially be a part of the dance company at Ananya Dance Theatre. Throughout 2020, Parisha trained with the company in person and in an online setting, and she has been dancing and touring with the company ever since.
In 2021, when COVID-19 restrictions began to ease, Parisha started thinking about returning to school to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree. With a desire to stay in Minnesota, Parisha considered looking for master's programs in nonprofit leadership or business. Seeking advice, Parisha reached out to Daniel Stark, dance faculty member at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Parisha and Dan worked very closely together during Parisha’s time at MSU, and she had grown to trust and respect his opinion. Dan informed Parisha that the MFA in Dance program at MSU was becoming a reality, and that applications were open for Fall 2021. Parisha decided to apply, and she was enthusiastically accepted by the Theatre and Dance Faculty into the program.
Daniel Stark, Director of the Dance Program at Minnesota State University, Mankato worked with Julie Kerr-Berry and the other Theatre and Dance faculty members to develop a Master of Fine Arts in Dance program. College of Humanities and Social Sciences Dean Christopher Brown, as well as the rest of the administration, was supportive of the need for an MFA in Dance program in the region and the ability of the theatre and dance programs at MSU to support an MFA in Dance track. Daniel Stark describes Minnesota as a fertile place that is well supported with artists and cross disciplinary work. Several universities in the state offer strong undergraduate dance programs, and the Twin Cities is a thriving arts and dance community. In the Fall of 2021, Minnesota State University, Mankato established the first Master of Fine Arts in Dance program in the state.
Within the program, Parisha had an opportunity to choreograph a minimum of two distinct pieces every semester. Over her tenure at MSU, she presented four pieces as part of the department’s Fall and Spring Dance Concerts.
Parisha spent a great deal of her time at MSU choreographing. She described her time in the studio working independently and with other students as experimental lab time; she had the feeling of being able to create and find her own voice through experimentation. She was able to focus and really develop her voice as an artist. Over her three years as an MFA student, Parisha consistently taught the Jazz I class to undergraduate students. She was able to craft and refine her own distinct style of teaching jazz, and she also invited guest artists and choreographers into the classroom as often as she could so that the students could experience various teaching styles.
Parisha presented her thesis project in the spring of 2024 at Red Eye Theatre in Minneapolis. She began thinking about and working on her thesis performance as early as her first semester at MSU in the fall of 2019 when she presented A-Part as a selection in the Fall Dance Concert of that year. The piece was originally presented as a solo, but Parisha decided she wanted to work with other artists on this piece. Throughout her choreography and rehearsals with the 10 other dancers, she examined several questions encouraging self-reflection of the performers as well as the eventual audience.
What is your body telling you right now? Are you listening? What/who is your body longing or searching for? What is your body and presence evident of? Who came before you? What do you carry forward? What do you tear apart?
Read more about Parisha’s thesis work: https://parishadance.com/m-f-a-thesis-2024
In February of 2024, Parisha’s article Contemporary Dance: Examining Limitations and Expanding Pedagogy was published in the Dance Education in Practice Journal. Parisha describes, “This article examines limitations of teaching contemporary dance through a Eurocentric lens and proposes an expansive approach to contemporary dance pedagogy that honors students' experiences in multiple dance forms and cultures. I question the Western pedagogy of contemporary dance and problematize the use of ballet pedagogy as a foundation of contemporary dance class. I document lived experiences and reference established approaches to provide a pedagogic framework that acknowledges differences and creates a comprehensive learning environment.”
As an international student, Parisha has always recognized the precarious nature of her status and future. Her visa status requires her to find a job after graduation that will sponsor an international candidate so that she can continue to work as a dance artist in the U.S. Parisha is currently exploring opportunities to continue to work and teach in higher education.
As the first MFA in Dance graduate from the program, Daniel Stark says that Parisha has set an incredibly high bar. She has crafted incredible choreography, which has been selected for presentation at the American College Dance Association’s regional conference. Stark described her thesis as “incredibly in depth and curious.” It digs into the topic, and incorporates her research, writing and connection to her choreography.
When asked for comment about her time working with Parisha at MSU, Dr. Julie Kerr-Berry said the following, “I was so delighted to have witnessed Parisha Rajbhandari’s journey with us throughout the years. As an undergraduate student, she was curious and open to the strange world of dance in academia. As a graduate student and first MFA graduate of the dance program, well, she was ‘off the charts.’ I also followed her work with the Ananya Dance Theater and could not take my eyes off her powerful performances with the company; she is fully immersed and fully embodied in the work. As my student, Parisha remained curious and waded ‘into the weeds’ with me as we ventured into some tough content in my history and pedagogy courses. Our conversations were rich, evocative, and full of deeper questioning about this complicated world particularly where race, gender, class, and dance intersect in this country and internationally. Her thesis is a testament to such brilliant inquiry. Parisha has so much to offer this universe because of her compassionate, yet critical stance that she fully embraces. Congratulations my dear student.”
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Left: Parisha walks at graduation with Director of Dance, Daniel Stark
Right: Parisha choreographs her thesis production "A-Part" with students Davaughn Lane, Athena Rodriguez, and Joaquin Warren.
