The Dancing Soul
A Kalaimamani, a ‘Top’ Grade Artiste of Doordarshan, a senior fellow at the Ministry of Culture, India and India’s first US Fulbright fellow in Bharatanatyam in Arts and Culture Management (2000) Lakshmi was destined to dance.
Way back in 1968 when Lakshmi was born, her mother decided that she would make her daughter a dancer. And thus began her journey. Beginning her training at the age of five, in Tirunelveli, Lakshmi pursued her learning from Smt Indira Krishnamoorthy. After her wedding, she came to Chennai and came under the guidance of Padmasri Chitra Visweswaran at Chidambaram Academy for Bharatanatyam.
Lakshmi is also trained in Karanas under Dr Padma Subrahmanyam, Abhinaya from Padmabhushan Kalanidhi Narayan and Tamil texts from Dr S Raghuraman. She is the first Doctorate from Madras University in Bharatanatyam and also has a Masters’ degree in Commerce.
An empanelled artist of ICCR (India Centre for Cultural Relations) and the SZCC (South Zone Cultural Centre), she has to her credit numerous solos and group performances in National and International festivals and in prestigious sabha-s. As a performer she has travelled widely, that includes countries: U S A, UK, Canada, France, Arab countries, Australia and Sri Lanka.
Simultaneously pursuing her academic interests, Lakshmi has presented papers in National and International seminars and conferences that include: Paper presentation for SemmozhiMaanadu (International Conference for Classical Tamil); ‘Dialogue through dance’ for Urbaniana University, Rome and ‘Methodology for institutional teaching in dance’, Madras University. She has also done Lecture-Demonstrations in Sabha-s of Chennai and in Golden Gate University, San Francisco.
As an author, she has translated book, ‘History of Tamil’s Dance’, by Dr S Raghuraman and has co-authored book, ‘NatanaKalaicholKalanjiam’. Her has published her book, ‘Shall we know: Natya’.
She is the Founder-Director of her institute, Sri Mudhraalaya.