The ability to present and enjoy Fine Arts is a unique gift to mankind that is found in every culture across the world. Music and dance are two wonderful forms of fine arts, and they are inseparable in many cases, as if they are two eyes of the mankind.

LearnQuest Academy of Music is an organization that promotes music by teaching different types of music such as Carnatic and Hindustani music from India with plans to include Western classical, Jazz and other types in the future. Mrs. Jothi Raghavan has been promoting Bharatha Natyam, the classical dance from South India in the Boston area since the mid 70’s by teaching this beautiful art in her dance school Nrityanjali and presenting several multimedia dance productions in the area. Now for the first time these two organizations are coming together in presenting the dance production Bhavayami Raghuramam, dances in praise of Lord Rama, on August 2nd at the Littleton High School Auditorium. The event is being organized by LearnQuest Academy.

When asked to describe the production and her reasons for doing this show, Mrs. Raghavan had this to say…

“Bhavayami Raghu Ramam is a dance offering to Lord Rama and his consort Sita. The songs chosen are works by Purandara Dasa,  Maharaja Swathi thirunal, Thulasidas, a marati abhang, and slokams from valmiki Ramayanam. My students Mamtha Raj, Sowmya Varada, Pranathi and Bhavana Kaki and Nityasri Shankar will be dancing along with me in this production. With this presentation, we hope to immerse the audience in Rama Bhakthi. I have been choosing a different theme every year . This is a culmination of  a summer workshop with these senior students who work very hard in producing a work of a high caliber. The musicians have come from India and are staying with me for this month. They are working closely with us to produce an original work that we'll all be proud of. Revathi Ramaswamy of Massachusetts will also be joining the team of musicians playing veena for the production.   We also try to use this opportunity  to raise funds for various causes. This year we are using this presentation to raise funds for LearnQuest - a wonderful organization that promotes both Carnatic and Hindustani music in this area and organizes a music conference every year. I wanted to help them in a small way and this is also my way of thanking them . I hope we get a large audience and raise a significant amount of money for the cause. Every penny raised goes to the organization.”

Pradeep Shukla, the Founder and President of LearnQuest Academy is quite moved by this gesture from Jothi Raghavan and Nrityanjali, and hopes that the thoughtfulness and hard work of the artists and the organizers will be rewarded with an auditorium filled with enthusiastic and appreciative audience.

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