Artistic/Executive Director, Achinta S. McDaniel

Achinta S. McDaniel is a pioneer of modern, mixed-genre dance in the United States, and the founder and Artistic Director of blue13 dance company. A prolific choreographer, performer, and instructor, McDaniel’s powerful and fresh style draws from diverse techniques including hip hop, ballet, jazz, tap, modern, Bhangra, Kathak, and Bollywood to create truly spectacular and visionary dance. She is known for her experimentation with international styles and her theatrical, inventive staging of many genres. Her work appears in feature films and television, commercials, music videos, and live theatrical dance productions from LA to Mumbai. McDaniel has worked with such renowned directors as Todd Haynes and Puneet Issar, and with American celebrities from Dustin Hoffman, Chris Kattan, and Beau Bridges to Bollywood stars Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, and Nandana Sen.

In 1999, McDaniel founded blue13, the country’s first contemporary Bollywood dance ensemble, since enjoying great success in creating live dance productions in her signature Bollywood-Tech™ style, along with mixed-genre modern dance around the globe. Her work is highly dramatic and a real reflection of her upbringing: Eastern and Western, exotic, mysterious, wild, electric and unconventional. The press describes Achinta as, “Truly beyond all spectacle [is] the dancing seductress artistic director Achinta S. McDaniel, who brightens up the stage with her presence and brings to the crowd a wave of enthusiasm that leaves them yelling from their seats.”

McDaniel is the premiere Indian Dance Instructor in Los Angeles, teaching her signature Bollywood.Bhangra.Beats and many other dance classes with The Blue School all over Los Angeles.Click for Class Information

For choreography booking, please contact DDO Artists Agency: (323) 462-8000.