A Kathak dancer,  Priya has been associated with the Institute of Music and Fine Arts for the last nineteen years. She started her own academy, Nrityanjali Classical Dance Academy, to promote Kathak.

Dr. Priya Dutta is the HOD of the Kathak Dance Department at IMFA, Jammu University.

Recalling her childhood, Priya says that she had been interested in dancing since childhood. She shares an incident when she had to participate in the annual function of her school in eighth grade, but her teacher restricted her from doing so. Then she decided to become a professional dancer and took admission to the Institute of Music and Fine Arts. She completed her graduation in Kathak dance and then went to Birju Maharaj’s Kathak Kendera to get training under him. Under the guidance of Birju Maharaj, she went to Shriram Bhartiya Kala Kendra, New Delhi, and completed her diploma successfully. Then she went to Chandigarh to pursue her master's in Kathak from Punjab University.

Talking about her journey, Priya says that she has been working in the field of Kathak dance for the last thirty years and has faced many struggles. In spite of having a very supportive family, there were many ups and downs in her journey. To master this subject and to establish her own identity in this field, she worked hard. She learned from her journey that knowledge and command of the subject are very important to creating your own identity. Her journey to promote Kathak is still ongoing.

Priya’s role models are her gurus, such as the late Vishwanath Kholi, Birju Maharaj, Rammohan Mishra, and Prof. Jaswinder Kaur, as she learned a lot in her journey from them. She currently also admires Purshotam Kumar, Kumudini Lakhia, and Rajkumar Bahrupiya.

Accepting her mistakes, Priya says that she tells her students not to repeat the same mistakes again and again but didn’t implement this on herself. She is learning every day from her mistakes and always tries to overcome them.

Priya’s life mantra is "Do good and forget."

Advising aspirants in her field, Priya says that it is important to gain the basic knowledge and qualifications about Kathak dance form.  It is also important to learn it under the guidance of a guru and practise a lot. After practising, the next step is to showcase it by creating your new ideas.