Bharatanatyam dance recital by Geeta Chandran

GEETHA PATIL

BOSTON: MIT India Business Club at MIT Sloan and MIT Sangam organized an enthralling Bharatanatyam performance by Padma Shri recipient Geeta Chandran, a well-know Indian dance artist and vocalist on May 6 at Wong Auditorium, Cambridge.

Geeta Chandran is continuing her teaching and performance of Bharatanatyam dance as a vehicle to build social bridges. Her husband Rajiv Chandran, who is with the United Nations as National Information Officer, hosted the event and explained the concept of each episode of the entire performance.

Introducing Geeta Chandran, Shouvik Das from the MIT India Business Club welcomed the audience to the program and thanked them for their support. He said that the MIT India Business Club tries to connect MIT Indian student and faculty community with India’s contemporary leaders in various fields. Along with Shouvik, Kritarth Yudhish and Aditi Shankar also worked to organize this program successfully.

After her performance, in the question-and-answer session, Geeta Chandran answered all the questions from the audience members. She also explained how dancing is done with live and pre-recorded music and how dancers adjust their body moves. She talked about how dancers make adjustments with the floors and length and width of the stage and how she customizes the dance moves to suite even the body types of the dancers.

Geeta Chandran was initiated into learning Bharatanatyam at the tender age of five under the teaching of Swarna Saraswathy, who trained her in the traditional Thanjavoor Devadasi Parampara.
Geeta is renowned not only for her deep and composite understanding of the art of Bharatanatyam, but also for her accomplishments in Carnatic music as a fine vocalist.

She is also is Founder Director and President of Natya-Vriksha Dance Company which is devoted to promoting Bharatanatyam. She has developed a holistic approach of teaching the classical dance to young learners. More than 30 senior disciples have already presented their arangetrams (debut performance) under her training and she also mentors over 100 disciples. Several of her students have blossomed as full-fledged performers, both inside and outside India.

Geeta Chandran’s book, So Many Journeys, is a collection of her writings that narrate her engagement with Bharatanatyam. Geeta has been conferred with numerous prestigious awards, including the Padma Shri, Kishore Kumar Kala Award, National Excellence Award, and Bharat Nirman Award among others.