Preeti Ramaprasad , an undergraduate at Rutgers university , and a disciple of Smt Sudharani Raghupathy presented a Bharatanatyam Margam at the Lowell Lecture Hall, at Harvard University on  Feb 7 2009. The event was sponsored by Harvard Sangeet and Harvard Dharma. Funds collected from the event were donated to the V-Excel educational trust.

The event was set to a live orchestra. Nalini Prakash , a senior student of Sudharani Raghupathy  who is currently doing her masters in dance therapy at Drexel university conducted the nattuvangam. The rest of the orchestra was made up entirely of undergraduates. Sharanya Shivakumar(Vocal , Case Western Reserve), Suhas Rao (Violin, Harvard), Akshay Anantapadmanabhan (Mridangam, Cooper Union), Rasika Shekar (Flute, Rutgers). Preeti herself is an undergraduate at Rutgers.

She opened her presentation with Shiva Kautuvam in Ragam Mohanam, a composition of K.S.R Aniruddha. From the get go her Jathis were packed with energy. Her entrance itself was creative and clearly established that this presentation was going to be magical display of high energy Nritta. Her lines were perfect and her movements did credit to her Guru.

After the inaugural piece she presented two numbers from the Navasandhi  Kautuvams, one dedicated to Agni in the Ragam Nattai and another dedicated to Varuna in the Ragam Varali. This was followed by the Thodi Varnam Maye Mayan Sodhari , a composition of Madurai Krishnan.  Punctuated by powerful jathis , Preeti described Goddess in her various forms.  The story of Sri Krishna Tulabaram was elaborated in the Sanchari. This was followed by an Andal composition Painkili Vannan in the ragam Thilang.  Preeti then presented a javali , Samaya Idu in Shuruti and ended
with a Madurai Krishnan Thillana in the Ragam Kapi.

Watching her, one was fascinated with her athleticism and her talam. With strong jumps and long leaps she covered large amounts of space in all her pieces.  Despite having a very Jathi intensive and difficult margam, she hardly broke a sweat.  It was truly a pleasure to watch her perform.  With more work on Abhinaya and with a better understanding of characters in her pieces, Preeti has the potential to become leading Bharatanatyam dancer.
Of note was the wonderful orchestra. Each one excelled in their presentation. Overall it was a fabulous effort and we hope to see more such presentations in the future. The program was aptly  titled Abhyasa as a tribute to their learning


Unfortunately for the arts most of these talented youngsters were pre-med, pre-law, business majors or engineering majors.  We hope they find the right balance in their lives to be able to really pursue their God given talent to the fullest.

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