Bhairav Bahadur Thapa

Bhairav Bahadur Thapa (born 1933) is a pioneering Nepalese dance director, choreographer, and scholar, widely recognized as Nepal's first official dance director. He founded the Bhairav Nritya Dal in 1954 to promote Nepali folk and traditional dances and has choreographed iconic forms such as the Peacock, Yak, and Jhankri dances. As a prolific author, his works include the school curriculum book Nepali Nritya Ra Saririk Prabeshika and the poetry collection Dhoka. Thapa is also the author of नृत्याक्षर विज्ञान (Nrityakshar Bigyan), a comprehensive dance notation system published in 2020, which is considered a 'grammar of dance' for systematically organizing various dance forms.