Meet Moksha Rao

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Moksha Rao. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Moksha below.

Moksha, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges, and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
Variety is the spice of life! As someone who has always juggled multiple things at once (and wouldn’t have it any other way), I keep creativity alive in my life by finding not just one but numerous outlets to express myself. Growing up in a family of artists and performers, I’ve always been drawn to design and dance from a very young age. It’s no surprise that years later, I find myself as a Product Designer at The Weather Channel and also a freelance Performing Artist. I feel both careers celebrate my creative interests and there’s never a dull moment. My days are packed; whether it’s creating bespoke prototypes for my company’s app, or choreographing a new dance piece for an upcoming show. Another way I further fuel my creativity is to keep learning something new. The minute you think you know everything, that’s where your creative journey becomes stagnant. In my design world, I am constantly keeping myself well-versed in the latest softwares like Figma. As for dance, my formal training is in India’s oldest classical dance form called Bharata Natyam. I decided to shake things up and have been learning the art of Contortion for the past year so that I can add an element of surprise to my shows. I feel it’s absolutely vital to keep creativity alive in my life, for I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’m fortunate to have led a very interesting life so far! I like to introduce myself as a designer by day and a dancer by night. By day, I work at The Weather Channel as a Product Designer. I love crafting new weather experiences which help a billion users around the world; truly getting to make a difference in people’s lives. It requires a unique combination of not just visual design skills, but also collaborating with different departments (engineering, product, sales, etc) plus an understanding of code and the ability to give presentations to stakeholders. I landed this dream job straight out of graduate school (I got my M.F.A. in Graphic Design and Visual Experience from the Savannah College of Art and Design) and I’m forever grateful to my manager Dee Mustafa-Bowne who saw promise in me when I was just a student. By night, I am a Performing Artist who trains in Indian fusion dance. It’s a combination of my formal training as a Bharata Natyam dancer (with Guru Raja Narayan, founder of Nritya Geethanjali Dance School, Mumbai), and my recent training as a Contortionist (with Ash Rexford of Circus Center, San Francisco). I have established myself as one of the most requested Asian cultural dancers in the Atlanta metro area. As a soloist, I have performed for clients including Creative Mornings, Atlanta Dogwood Festival, Fayette County Library, Powder Springs Business Group, Magnolia Fine Arts Festival, and Kedron Elementary, to name a few. It is very rare that I have to turn down a gig, and as a result, I have performed pretty much everywhere in Atlanta, from libraries to festivals to bridges to halftime shows! For event bookings, the best way to reach out to me would be via email or Instagram. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the finest event managers in the ATL area and would hear from you about putting together a one-of-a-kind show for your event.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Bravery, impulsiveness, and patience. My advice to those starting out is do not be afraid to put yourself out there. Both design and dance are extremely competitive fields, and it took me a lot of courage to carve a name for myself in both professions. Let me illustrate how I put myself out there:

Design: 6 months before I graduated from art school, I recorded my thesis presentation and uploaded it to LinkedIn. I noticed that the Head of Product Design at The Weather Channel liked my post (we had a mutual friend). So I bravely messaged her to introduce myself and enquired if she had a job opening at the company. I’d like to highlight that I had never done something like this before, in fact, I applied to 103 companies when I was looking for an internship in my second year of grad school. Only 6 got back to me, out of which 1 hired me, so I was ready to face that rejection all over again. But before I knew it, she sent me an invite for an interview and encouraged me to apply for the role of Associate Product Designer. And 4 years later, including a Green card, 3 awards, and a promotion, here we are. I honestly felt like I hit the jackpot. I absolutely love my job, my coworkers, and my work-life balance. And to be working for a company that pretty much everyone has heard of (and to be designing an app that most people I interact with use) is just icing on the cake. Fast-forward to 4 years later; I received the IBM Client and Partner Success Award 2023, which recognizes IBMers who’ve gone above and beyond to achieve client success and demonstrate courageous actions to help the company win in the market. I wake up every day, super grateful to be part of such a ground-breaking team.

Dance: During the COVID-19 pandemic, I started revisiting my dance pieces from back in the day. With all that extra time we had at home, I began training regularly and decided to use Instagram as a tool to reach out to any potential event coordinators for performance opportunities. I knew the chances were slim because there were a million dancers out there plus as an immigrant maneuvering the performing arts field in another country…I was basically starting from scratch. But to my surprise, I landed my first online gig in the US in 2020 and things started snowballing from there. In 2022, as in-person shows began ramping up and I started performing all over ATL, I still felt like something was missing. I decided it was time to improve my flexibility and range of motion in order to extend my performing career as much as possible and to stand out from other Indian dancers out there. So on an impulse, I looked for flexibility coaches online and came across the incredible Ash Rexford, who recommended I join her intro stretching class online. I was terrified to say the least, thinking it was too late in life to do this, but I stuck to it and became one of her regular students. A few months passed and she advanced me to her Beginner Contortion Class. Her exact words were “You’re ready!”. Incredulous (and armed with electrolytes), I nervously joined that class, and a year later, I was able to do things with my body I never thought were possible. I started learning Contortion at the age of 29, which is a stark difference from my Indian dance training that began at the age of 5. But what started out as just a class to improve my flexibility has taken me to a place I never thought I’d be. And under Ash’s watchful eye and supportive nature, I know this is just the beginning. It’s hard to put into words, but it is weirdly therapeutic and satisfying to work on achieving something that feels absolutely impossible (like a drop back into a forearm stand and a come back up, a flat split, or catching your heels in a backbend). I always found it funny that I chose Contortion as a practice because patience does not come easily to me and it’s easy to feel defeated training such a demanding art form every day, but it’s taught me to slow down and enjoy the process. With time, everything will fall into place, and that’s exactly what I’ve experienced thus far. I also complement my training with a ClassPass membership (shout-out to local ATL businesses VibeRide and Forum Athletic Club for their fantastic Spin and HIIT classes!).

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
If you had told me that I would be having my cake and eating it too when I turned 30, I would’ve never believed it! 2023 is a special year for me; it marks my seventh year in the United States and the year I got my Green Card. It is also the year I decided to challenge myself by taking up Contortion as a practice, giving my first performance incorporating these new skills, and proving that it’s never too late to learn something new. My new mantra is to stop being afraid of what could go wrong and start being excited about what could go right. Because it could turn out better than you ever expected.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Kedron Elementary School, Creative Mornings

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