Jhuma Basak, a psychoanalyst and an artist who started her career as a dancer-artist and then later moved into psychoanalysis. Her mother, Mira Brahmachari, a dancer-artist herself, was Jhuma’s inspiration in the persuasion of her creative quest. Jhuma has been trained in classical dance forms like Odissi, Bharatnatyam, Kathakali. Jhuma was a founding member of Dancers’ Guild, Calcutta, and was one of the lead performers
of the company from 1982 till 1994. She travelled across the world (South America, USA, England, Scotland, China, Philippines) performing along with Guild productions supported by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations. That rich global creative experience acted as her foundation to the development of her cultural and artistic eye. Much later, in the late 90s and early 2000, she embarked upon a completely new concept and a new form of dance-theatre productions, called Versedance – a non- linear
performing text based on a poetic text, using dance, movement, theatre, and music to create an innovative dramatic performing narrative. Her creative productions found the support of Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, and the India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore, to stage performances based on the poetic works of Shakespeare, Tagore,
Rilke, Neruda, Jibananda Das, Mina Kumari, Amrita Pritam, along with her dance-theatre production of Euripides’ Medea.