Outstanding Leadership in Queens
2005 Honoree of the Queens Federation of Churches

Pritha Singh

Pritha Singh, Executive Producer and Founder/Artistic Director of the Rajkumari Cultural Center, belongs to a family whose members have been distinguished leaders in Indo-Caribbean political, intellectual and cultural life. She is a multi-disciplinary artist – actor, dancer, choreographer, poet, playwright and storyteller – and her work as a producer combines tradition with modern theater techniques. Her artistic career began at age 5, studying ballet under Prima Ballerina, Helen Taitt, and Rajdhar and Natya, dance styles peculiar to East Indians in Guyana, Kathak and dramatic arts, including the musical dance-drama genre based on the traditional Asian Indian leela, with her parents, Hamandan and Rajkumari Singh, and her brother, Gora Singh.

She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Herbert Berghof/Uta Hagen Studios and Playwrights Foundation, Pace University in New York (majoring in English/Theatre), and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Pritha studied the Mariammen Theater of Guyana with custodians, Chinappa Virasawmi, Mukain Nagapoolay and her brothers, Karna and Gora. Over the last four years, she has worked to develop a repertoire of Indo-Caribbean music and dance. Pritha is particularly interested in preserving and presenting neglected heritage art forms, many of them unique variations of originals, evolved from the diaspora experience in Guyana, Suriname, and Caribbean islands like Trinidad. In 1994, Pritha and her brother, Gora Singh (1950-1997), Kathak dance exponent and choreographer, founded The Rajkumari Cultural Center which was incorporated in 1996. The Center is dedicated to revitalizing and nurturing the arts and culture of Indo-Caribbean and to building bridges for this isolated ethnic minority to participate in the artistic and cultural life of City, State and Nation. Year-round workshops and activities between children, youth, adults and elders, stimulates original and contemporary creativity, scholarship and performance, and preserves traditional folk-art forms of people of South Asian ancestry from the Caribbean and South America living in the United States.