MIT India Business Club at MIT Sloan and MIT Sangam organized an enthralling Bharatanatyam performance by Padma Shri  Geeta Chandran, a well know Indian dance artist and vocalist on Monday, May 06, 2019 at Wong Auditorium, Cambridge, from 6:00pm to 7.30pm with a group of amazing classical dance lovers and aficionados. Smt. Geeta Chandran is continuing her teaching and performance of Bharatanatyam dance as a vehicle to build social bridges.

Shri. Shouvik Das from the MIT India Business Club, welcomed warmly the audiences to the program and thanked them for their enthusiasm and support. He also presented a brief introduction of Smt. Geetha Chandran. He also 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, Shri. Kritarth Yudhish and Smt. Aditi Shankar also worked hard to organize this program successfully. Her husband, Shri. Rajiv Chandran, who is with the United Nations as National Information Officer, hosted the event with his excellent oratory. He explained the concept of each episodes of the entire performance with his perfect eloquent language skills. 

Smt. Geeta Chandran was initiated to learning Bharatanatyam at her tender age of 5 years under the teaching of Smt. Swarna Saraswathy, who trained her in the traditional Thanjavoor devadasi parampara. Later, Smt. Geeta Ji continued learning diverse aspects of the Bharathanatyam from many eminent Gurus and today, with that abundant knowledge, she can present Bharatanatyam with her personal vision that skillfully interlaces abstract notions of Joy, Beauty, Values, Aspirations, Myths and Spirituality. Smt. Geeta Ji is renowned not only for her deep and composite understanding of the art of Bharatanatyam, but also for her accomplishments in the Carnatic music as a fine vocalist, and her work in television, video and film, theatre, choreography, dance education, dance activism and dance-issue journalism is admired and appreciated very much.

Smt. Geeta Ji is a Founder, Director, and the President of Natya-Vriksha Dance Company devoted to promoting Bharatanatyam and known for the high artistic quality of its group presentations. 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 one hundred disciples and several of her students have blossomed as full-fledged performers, both inside and outside India.

Smt. 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 National Indian Award - Padma Shri, Kishore Kumar Kala Award, National Excellence Award, Bharat Nirman Award etc.

Smt. Geeta Ji has always tried to create new spaces for the younger classical dancer and attempts to push the boundaries of the classical art to reach out to the audiences especially of younger generation and accommodate the changing needs of the time. She believes that dance must be linked to life and that artists must use their role in society to make a difference to life and living of others. Her choreographies Her Voice and Imagining Peace expressed her belief that dance can used as a vehicle to build social connections between the dancers and audiences’ understanding and appreciation of the same.

After her mesmerizing and elegant Bharatanatyam performance, in the Q&A session, Smt. Geeta Ji answered all the questions from the audiences very interestingly and clearly, and also by demonstrating dance steps and singing songs. She also explained how dancing is done with live and pre-recorded music and how dancers adjust their body moves and moves on the feet to music. She also 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 type of the dancers.

Her mastery of dance demonstrated integrity of dance lines, her control on the moves, refined gestures and rhythmic fluttering of her fingers. Always, she displayed a well-balanced alliance of gestures from head to toe, cracking with energy. Her dancing is very masterful and matchless – said one of the audiences.

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