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Bharatanatyam Dance and Story Telling

With Divya Ramkumar

Bharatanatyam is a South Indian dance form filled with rhythmic foot work, abstract body movement, hand gestures and facial expressions, as a means of telling stories.

“Respect Nature
Protect Nature
Preserve Nature.”

Practice this Bharatanatyam routine:

Aramandi (half sitting with knees bent and opened out)

Starting position in Aramandi: half sit with knees and toes pointing to the side, holding tripatharka – hands – facing down.

Stretch your right leg to the right with toes pointing up, open right hand tripatharka and look to your right side.

Tripathaka

Return to Aramandi position.

Repeat the step to your left side.

Return to Aramandi position.

Repeat the routine at different speeds as preferred.

Challenge yourself to sit lower and do the routine.

Muzhumandi (full sitting position)

 

Tree using Tripathaka

Thinking with Soochi

Divya Ramkumar is an accomplished Bharatanatyam Artiste.

Based out of the South Indian State of Kerala in India, she has created her space in the Arts World with her immense talent and unrelenting hardwork. Divya is the disciple of Sri. Sunil Nellay, a highly regarded Master, and artiste of Bharatanatyam. He has been the guiding light for Divya in her journey to master the fine traits of Bharatanatyam. Being a Keralite and Malayalee, Divya also had the opportunity to master other Indian regional art forms of Kuchupudi, Mohiniyattom and folk dances. She has performed in various platforms and occasions and have won several awards such as Kalathilakam and Yuva Natya Puraskar in 2017.

Though Divya is a postgraduate in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management, her undying love for the Arts inspired her to make it a career. She is the founder and Director of Natyanjali Dance School, where students are educated and trained in Bharatanatyam. Her
students range from as young as 5 to adults as old as 50. She is also one of the founding members of Samarpana Classical Arts, which is a grass root level organisation solely founded to provide a practice platform for Adults who wish to get back to dancing after a break.

With the aim of inspiring and providing first class training to youngsters and adults alike, Divya has always strived for excellence to deliver the same in the best possible way. International Artists have been invited for Workshops, Lecture Demonstrations, and performances. Performance opportunities have been created to instil confidence, stage presence, teamwork and holistic development. Students have been encouraged to appear for Dance Grade Exams, thereby enabling them to challenge themselves.
Divya also believes in spreading awareness of the traditional arts of India to the community and has organised outreach workshops and demonstrations at schools, hospitals, sheltered homes, and community spaces. She has been a part of The Confluence: A charity event on the theme of climate change and food security. With the aim of providing platforms for upcoming artists, Divya has collaborated with Cambridge based musicians in the Classical and Western genre. She has led her senior students at Aberdeen to complete their ‘Arangettram’ or the graduation performance in 2014 and the pre-graduation performance ‘Chilanka Pooja’ of her Cambridge students in 2019. Her Students were the National
Champions at the Union of United Kingdom Malayalee Associations (UUKMA) National Competition 2019. They were invited to perform at the Mayor’s reception. Natyanjali Dance School and Samarpana Classical Arts have been regular contributors to the Cambridge Big Weekend since 2015.

If you would like to know about us or the artform, please get in touch with Divya Ramkumar
divyanatyanjali@gmail.com
www.natyanjalidance.com
www.facebook.com/natyanjalidanceschool

 

Cambridge South Asian History Month was launched by Cambridge City Council on 15 June 2020. Join the conversation on our facebook page @CamSouthAsianHistory

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