Arpita Gogoi, the wife of Partha Gogoi and mother of Arohan Gogoi is the founder and director of a non-profit organization called Virginia Happy Feet; an enterprise based on music, dance and creativity. The name of organization was coined after brainstorming about several names and voting initiative of her friends and fellow dancers Arti Kumari, Meenakshi Vedagiri, Suchita Bora, Simi Dey, Rumi Ghosh, Rajni Palkey, Prerna Saxena.
Arpita’s passion for dance began at the age of three when she used to watch television and dance. Soon after her grandparents admitted her to “Uday Shankar Cultural Institute” under the supervision of dance teachers: Amala Shankar and the Bengali movie actress/dancer, Mamata Shankar. The first dance debut of Arpita was at the age of three at an auditorium for performing arts in Calcutta named “Kalamandir” where she played a little sage in an exerpt from “Mahabharata” called “Kalmrigaya”. While in Calcutta she danced in Rabindrasadan, Birla Academy, Kalamandir, Rotary club, Calcutta Club and Calcutta Doordarshan or Calcutta television and other noteworthy places a number of times.
Coming to USA she pursued her passion for dance and was an “Oddisi” dance student under guru Chitra Krishnamurty a disciple of famous dancer of Orissa, late Shanjukta Panigrahi. She also learned Lucknow gharana of Kathak under teacher, Asha Vattikuti. Although her formal training is in Indian Classical dancing she innovates and choreographs different kind of dance forms as folk, creative, bollywood, bihu, goan etc and she enjoys choreographing in groups and solo and performing locally in DC metro area and Northern Virginia where she lives with her family as well as other states like Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, Calgary in Canada, Atlanta in Georgia, Orlando in Florida, Las Vegas in Nevada and so on and so forth. Some of the places she performed for are Telegu Community CATS diwali, Durga temple Holi Mela, Dussera, Onam, fund raisers, Bengali community or NVBA (Northern Virginia Bengali Association) Durga puja, Saraswati puja, Kobi dibos, DC and North Carolina bihu functions, Ganesh Chaturthi functions of Balgokulam, Greater Richmond Bengali Association or GRBA, Bengali association of Maryland called “Prantik” at Baisakhi and Durga pujo, Indian Independence day and India republic day celebrations, Assam Conventions in various states of USA.
Her love for music sprouted later on at a matured age mainly due to the musical influence of her family and she enjoys vocal performances bengali, hindi and other languages like marathi, sanskrit, assamese, english in groups or solo in local, national, international shows. You can log into https:www.youtube.com and type “arpita gogoi” to watch her dance and music performances. Some of the noteworthy performances are the Bollywood group dance with “Thakshak” movie song “Jumbalika”, ” solo folk dance with song by bhoomi bengali band song “Sohag chand bodoni dhoni”, solo dance performance at Calgary Assam convention with Bhupen Hazarika’s “Sagor Songome”, creative dance with Assamese song “Kopili kopili rangdhali swali”, creative dance with Bhupen Hazarika’s bengali song “Aj jibon khuje pabi chute chute ai”, Assamese creative group dance with Bhupen Hazarika’s song “Rong kiniba kune”, Assamese solo bihu dance with Assamese bihu song of friends Rick and Nick called “Hathe meli halo halodi” with japi or assamese hats you will find if you search under “chumki gogoi'”, group dance with goan song of Remo Fernandez, dance with Rabindrasangeets “Himero rate”, “Amar raat pohalo”, folk dance with “bhoomi” bengali band song “phagunero mohonai”, group dance with Bhupen Hazarika Assamese song “Kuhua bon”, solo dance with A. R. Rehman’s “Dhim ta dare dani”of hindi movie “Thakshak”, group chorus with kareokee of hindi song of Hemant kumar or Hemonto Mukeherjee “Hai apna dil toh awara”. Some of the names of other performers in this group are Arpita’s husband Partha Gogoi and friends Tanu Govind, Vansikha Govind, Sunanda Baruah, Abhijit Sil, Moon or Kakoli Sil, Nabanita Borah, Bidisha Goswami, Ambarish Dongre, Paranjyoti Laskar, Ryan Dutt.
If you have interest in dance or music you can be one of us. We do this not as a vocation but as amateurs in a very relaxed, fun-loving, enthusiastic, energetic way at the same time trying for professionalism best we can. Most welcome to join us in one of our shows. Thank you from Arpita and her team.
