A 12-year-old girl has achieved a complex dance form such as Bharatanatyam while sitting in the US, learning the traditional dance through Skype from a tutor in Mysore. Anoosha Sri recently came to India for Ranga Pravesha (debut on stage – a ritual).
In just a year after she started her online training, Sri performed Bharatanatyam in Belur, Bangalore, and Mysore in the last three weeks. “It is a triumph. Learning Bharatanatyam online is not simple. Really it’s wonderful. Not everyone can do this,” says Vidushi Mithra Naveen of Nada Vidyalaya Academy of Music and Dance.
Naveen lauded Sri’s accomplishment, saying that using the technology to propagate Bharatanatyam is a very good move. She added that it is not possible to learn Bharatanatyam from the basics through the Internet. Sri was born in Louisville and resides there. Her parents, Srinivasa and Mayura, who are IT professionals, come from Bangalore. As she showed interest in Indian classical music and dance at the young age of two, her parents sent her for Bharatanatyam training under the tutelage of Akila Iyer and later with Smitha Paily in the US. As Sri watched Indian movies and concerts, she developed an interest in Bharatanatyam. “I love Bharatanatyam among other forms of dance. Though it is difficult to learn and perform without practical guidance, I could do it with ease with the guidance of my online guru,” Sri said.
Though she had basic training in Bharatanatyam, she started her online training again from the basics. The girl opted for online training because attending dance classes in the US became tedious – she had to travel for around 40 minutes to attend an hour of training.
As a result, she started to lose interest in Bharatanatyam classes. “I was keen on Bharatanatyam since my childhood. I started to practice when I was about three years old. But due to time, traveling constraint, and academic pressure, I could not concentrate. I used to spend 30-40 minutes only on traveling to attend one hour class in the US. Then I found an online guru and for convenience I opted for Skype,” she said.
She discovered the guru while searching for an online teacher on the Internet. Badari Divya Bhushan, of city-based Bhushans Academy of Performing Arts and Visual Presentation, began training Sri in July 2013. And in just a year, she came to India for her ritual debut performance on stage (Ranga Pravesha). Sri has won several awards in the US for her performance, including from the Indian Community Foundation (ICF).
“It is not easy to teach Bharatanatyam online. I did not sleep several nights during Anoosha’s training,” said Badari Divya Bhushan. Besides, the institution has been giving online training to several other students in other countries. “I have been teaching 14 students, including six NRI and eight foreign nationals,” Bhushan said.
Content contributed by staff member, reported from Mysore, India, sourced by timesofindia.indiatimes.com
