Dancer Geeta Chandran To Present Abhyaas 2018

On Wednesday 28 November 2018, 6.30 at the Chinmaya Mission Auditorium, Lodi Road, New Delhi, Dancer Geeta Chandran will present ABHYAAS 2018, a performance showcasing 32 of her students who will be dancing her choreographies.

"Bharatanatyam is a performing art, and it is imperative that the students perform on stage to live audiences to perfect their art," says the renowned dancer who was honoured with the Padmashri award in 2007 and the Central Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 2016.

In ABHYAAS, her disciples will be presenting items from the traditional margam of Bharatanatyam including: Pushpanjali, Alarippu, Todai Mangalam, Jatiswaram, Natesha Kavithvam, Varnam, Padams and Tillana. While these are all traditional numbers, what is unique is the choreographic eye with which Geeta Chandran has visualised them.

"Stagecraft is so different from classroom learning," says the dancer. "My attempt at Natya Vriksha is two-fold to create both artists and performers!"

Chandran's NATYA VRIKSHA was established in 1991 and she has trained innumerable dancers, several of whom have gone on to become solo dancers of repute.

Chandran says that she is delighted that the Navaratna NMDC is supporting ABHYAAS 2018 as part of its Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Chandran says that the support is a natural fit: NMDC mines the earth for minerals; at Natya Vriksha I am mining youth to discover gems of dance!

Natya Vriksha enshrines the best philosophies of Indian classical culture. At the institute Dancer Geeta Chandran aims to make youth aware of the immense potential of Bharatanatyam to become a live voyage of learning. Through the dance, she makes them comprehend the complex inter-linkages between the classical dance tradition and its strict grammar with other disciplines: Philosophy, Ritual, Religion, Myths, Ancient texts, Poetry, Literature, Art (Painting and Sculpture), Cultural Studies, Yoga, Handicrafts & Handlooms and Beauty & Aesthetics.

Natya Vriksha's vision statement seeks to probe the continuing relevance of classical tradition in a world of changing values. It showcases the aesthetics of Bharatanatyam and its history, how the tenets of the dance can be employed as a means of communicating issues of contemporary concern, even while exploring linkages between history and continuity, between external body and internal mind-space, between yesterday and tomorrow, between artist and audience............between roots and wings.