Antonia Minnecola

Some Lesser Known Facts About Antonia Minnecola

• She grew up in the United States.

  

• Once, during a media conversation, Antonia Minnecola shared how she was drawn towards dance. She said,
  

  I was little when I wanted to dance. I loved to spin, so movement itself was an ecstasy for me, and very natural as a child.”

• In the 1970s, one of her close friends Judy was going to attend the Ali Akbar College of Music in the Bay Area to meet Ali Akbar Khansahib. Judy asked Antonia Minnecola if she could come along.

• When they arrived, a student invited them to watch a kathak performance by Chitresh Das who was accompanied by Shankar Ghosh.

• A day or two later, they visited Khansahib’s home. Antonia Minnecola asked Khansahib if she could enrol in the college and told him that she wanted to learn dance.

  

• Antonia Minnecola and Zakir Hussain met in the late 1970s in California’s Bay Area when Antonia had just started her dance training.

• Zakir and Antonia got married eight years after they first met. Antonia’s parents knew about their relationship.

• Her father did not support her marrying a musician because it was not seen as a stable career then.

• Zakir Hussain once shared in a media conversation that he was the first person in his family to marry outside his caste.

  

• His mother did not approve of his decision to marry Antonia. However, Zakir’s father secretly helped them to get married and later informed his mother.

• After a few years of marriage, Zakir’s mother accepted Antonia Minnecola as her daughter-in-law.

• Zakir Hussain revealed that while he was travelling for music concerts and struggling to earn money, Antonia was living in the US. She was taking care of their daughters.

• Antonia Minnecola once shared that she sacrificed her career to support Zakir Hussain and worked hard to raise their daughters.

  

• She said that she struggled with emotions like anger and depression when Zakir Hussain travelled abroad. However, she adjusted and made sacrifices for the sake of her children.

• The couple mentioned that they accepted and respected each other’s customs and family values. They tried their best to teach these values to their children.

• Antonia Minnecola is a disciple of the late Sitara Devi, a legendary Indian Kathak dancer. She first met Sitara Devi in 1974.

• During her dance training, Antonia was supported by two fellowships from the American Institute of Indian Studies. She continued to study with Sitara Devi for nearly three decades.

  

• Antonia Minnecola has performed in many tours and festivals worldwide such as Jacob’s Pillow, Other Minds Festival, the San Francisco Jazz Festival, Stanford Lively Arts, Cal Performances, Montreal Jazz Festival, Auckland Festival, The World Drum Festival, Asian Pacific Performing Arts Festival, Percussion Currents Festival in Bahia, The Mystic Music Festival in Konya, and The Sacred Music Festival in Fez.

• As a solo Kathak artist, she often accompanied her husband and tabla expert, Zakir Hussain. She has performed with Zakir’s yearly touring group, Masters of Percussion.

  

• Antonia Minnecola has assisted Zakir Hussain during his guest professor tenures at Princeton University and Stanford University.

• She has supported him in several Meet The Composer Orchestra Residency Series and at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.

• Antonia Minnecola has conducted many workshops and Kathak dance classes at UC Berkeley Swarthmore University and Lines Ballet’s BFA Program in Dance at Dominican University.

• Anisa Qureshi, Zakir Hussain and Antonia’s eldest daughter is a UCLA graduate. After completing her formal education, she began working as a filmmaker in the USA. Some of Anisa’s well-known works include 3:10 to Yuma (2007), Mr. Woodcock (2007), and Just Like Heaven (2005).

• Isabella Qureshi, their younger daughter, studied dance in Manhattan and then began working as a ballet dancer.

  

• On 16 December 2024, her husband, Zakir Hussain, died in a hospital in San Francisco, US, from complications appearing out of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.