Based on a catholic, conservative family in Italy, during the rebellion years commencement, she took her journey to her passion leaving everything behind. The turmoil started in 1978, the college revolution days because people demanded the values of western societies and were inspired to live and learn different philosophies. Those different lives seemed sort of a pilgrimage because it was a sort of wisdom. To experience our own life, not the one imposed on us, never knowing the urge what could do to us. A partially trained theatre artist, started doing workshops on skills like art, culture, and responding to pedagogy’s stimulus, but without the roots. Researching the grammar of our mind and body, a kathakali performer has been an astonishment, an inspiring trigger, the adventure came to an end. The experiments to learn, and to merge art, and mythology bound her here. The way of learning and expressing through the body, my spirituality never ended with the philosophy and connecting the myth behind my body. This new beginning triggered her to learn from Echo & Narcissus. Some new acquisitions came from a synthesis of things. It’s just fate if life is just pushing us, never felt what could be lifelike others. From the first experiment, whenever she composed something, it was always a synthesis, an inspiration to others as well. In this era of globalization, an art form does not take time to break the barriers of caste, creed, culture, and ethnicity. Padma Shri Illeana Citaristi is a perfect blend of ‘East meets West’ who was born and brought up in the world’s Renaissance capital and then moved from Italy to India at a young age to pursue a career in kathakali, a traditional Malayali dance form. She started her journey from the southern Indian state of Kerala and afterward headed to Odisha. In Odisha, Citaristi studied under the guardianship of Guru Kelu Charan Mohapatra. She is well known for amalgamating ideas and concepts from different art fields and presenting them through her dance skills. Besides the realm of dance, Citaristi has also worked in movies and written books. Her most notable achievement in the film industry came in the form of the prestigious National Film Award in 1995 for the movie Yugant. She is the first dancer of foreign origin to be awarded the 4th highest civilian award, Padma Shri, and is also a member of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity. Ileana Citaristi calls herself an Italian by birth and an Odia at heart. She is well known for amalgamating ideas and concepts from different art fields and presenting them through her dance skills. Besides the realm of dance, Citaristi has also worked in movies and written books. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx