My Story

Kay Poursine was born in New Orleans,  the daughter of Lillian and Augustine Poursine,  a descendant of a French Creole family with deep roots in the city’s history. Kay’s mother was a talented artist who studied with a painting master while the family was stationed in Japan after the war.  Lillian entered Kay and her sister Suzanne in ballet classes when they were 5 and 6. Traveling extensively with her family in Japan, Europe and the United States, Kay continued ballet studies until 17.

While studying ballet in Sendai Japan, she saw a performance of classical Thai dancing. Though mesmerized by the elaborate Thai hand gestures, she continued her training in ballet but was never satisfied until she saw some years later a concert of Bharata Natyam, the classical dance from South India.

Poursine was fortunate to find a supreme artist in this dance – T. Balasaraswati. She studied with the great dancer first at Mills College in Oakland, California, then in subsequent summer residencies on the West Coast and at Wesleyan University, CT. Balasaraswati invited her to Madras (Chennai) for private classes with her and her daughter Lakshmi in 1976-77, after which Kay received her M.A. from Wesleyan University where she also studied music with Balasaraswati’s brothers T. Viswanathan and T. Ranganathan. In 1980 Kay was invited to teach a course of Bharata Natyam in Balasaraswati’s bani (style) in the Wesleyan Dance Department. After receiving her master’s degree, Poursine studied with Bala and Lakshmi in Chennai 1982-83 with the support of the first of three Smithsonian senior fellowships under the auspices of the American Institute for Indian Studies, University of Chicago. Poursine’s performances in India received rave reviews. After Balasaraswati’s death in 1984, Poursine continued her studies in this family bani (style) with Bala’s senior disciple Smriti Nandini Ramani in Chennai, recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar, and the ‘Natya Padmam’ from Brahma Gana Sabha. Kay continued studies with Nandani Ramani in Chennai October 2016 and February 2019.