Bharatanatyam Arangetram of D. LAKSHMI of Yoganjali Natyalayam

[Guest guest]

YOGANJALI NATYALAYAM

Proudly Presents

SELVI D. LAKSHMI

In Bharatanatya Arangetram

5.30pm, Saturday, 11th June 2005

At Alliance Francaise Auditorium, Rue Suffern, Pondicherry-1

 

Yoganjali Natyalayam takes great pleasure in inviting you with family and friends to attend the Bharatanatya Arangetram of one of the brightest Yognat stars on June 11th 2005. The Arangetram is one of the partial requirements in her fulfilling her 9-year part time Diploma in Rishiculture Ashtanga Yoga and Bharata Natyam and she has had to pass numerous tests and compiled thesis. She has come out with flying colours in all the requirements.

 

Yognat only allows the students to perform their Arangetram after the completion of the 9-year training, as we want the student to develop in the art to the maximum possible. Of course the students get numerous opportunities to be part of the Yognat performances and Lakshmi had done at least 300 performances till date in Bharatanatyam and Yoga including key roles in the Annual 3 hour Dance Dramas.

 

I give below a recent article written about her last year to help you understand the depth of her achievements.

 

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Spiritual heroines are very much part of Tamil tradition, as exemplied so brilliantly in the epic drama Silappadikkaaram, the tale of Kannagi. Even now, the heroic strength of will, combined with beauty, grace, intelligence, artistic talent and spiritual strength can be occasionally found in our young modern Indian ladies. Such a person is young D. Lakshmi, a twenty-year-old Pondicherrian who is a multifaceted “liberated lady!”

 

Young Lakshmi was recently named “Best Outgoing Student” at Bharathidasan Government College for Women, where she has graduated with a B.Sc. in Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics. She bagged this award, which included a Certificate and a Medal, out of the 900 outgoing students in this year’s graduating batch. The college has a total strength of about 2700 young women.

 

Not only is Lakshmi amongst the top three academically in her subject, she is a professional level Bharat Natyam Dancer as well as an accomplished Yoga Asana demonstrator. Her excellent oratorical skills have won her many awards. Her leadership abilities have seen her organize a large number of extra-curricular activities in her College.

 

The Best Outgoing Student Award is given to the final year student of Bharathidasan College, who has shown outstanding participation and proficiency in extra curricular activities like sports, literary and debate events, cultural activities etc and also academics. All the final year students, who are about 900 in number, are eligible for this award. Judgment for the award is based on points allotted for prizes won at International, National, State, District and Inter Collegiate levels of competitions, The candidates who scores the maximum points is declared the Best Outgoing Student of the Year. The student is also given the privilege of proposing the Vote of Thanks during the College Day.

 

Lakshmi has been a student of Yoganjali Natyalayam for ten years. The Director of Yoganjali Natyalayam, Puduvai Kalaimamani Meenakshi Devi Bhavanani paid rich tribute to her student. “Lakshmi is a real “heroine” of modern times. Despite the heavy pressures of academic life and family obligations, she has persisted in her quest for artistic excellence in her Bharat Natyam. She has never lost sight of her need for spiritual development, even in the hectic tempo of the modern life style. Her drive for personal perfection has taken her to the pinnacle of achievement in Yoga Asanas. Her mastery of the acrobatic Karanas of Bharat Natyam has won her thunderous applause before elite audience not only locally but also nationally and internationally. She is capable of the most difficult tasks I have set to her and makes the impossible

possible. She has remained true to her, Indian Tamil heritage and has not sold out her birthright to a false modernity or foreign, materialistic values. This is why I call her “a modern heroine” and “a role model for all young women.”

 

Lakshmi attributes her success in winning the “Best Outgoing Student” Award to her training at Yoganjali Natyalayam. She says, Yoganjali Natyalayam to me means “a home away home”, not because I spend a lot of time there, but because it makes me act, speak and think the way I madly want, the way I should and in a way that goodness and beauty has become a part of my life. Yoganjali Natyalayam makes me do things in such a way that there is a meaning in my life and that I act according to the purpose of my birth. It is a place where I have had most of my growth. I mean “growth” in the real sense, that is, “spiritual growth”. At times, when I dance or perform Asanas with a mad love and true passion for the Lord and the Art, then, Yoganjali Natyalayam becomes the most sacred temple on earth, to me. The temple where I worship God in my most

enjoyable way, the temple where the worship in itself is a bliss, a joy, a happiness, a growth, a realization and an expansion of consciousness. It’s a splendid experience for which I am unable to find enough words to express its Divinity. All great experiences of my life have been in Yoganjali Natyalayam or due to Yoganjali Natyalayam. It’s a home where I have great souls to look after me, to care for me and to see that I do what is good and necessary for me and my growth.

 

Lakshmi has participated in every one of the Bharat Natyam Dance Dramas presented by Yoganjali Natyalayam since its founding in 1993. She has played the leading role in Nala Damayanthi as “Nala”; in Ramavathara as “Lord Rama”; and in Silappadikaaram as “Kovalam”. She won the inaugural Swami Gitananda Best Youth Award 2000 as well as Champion of Champion Award in 17th Pondicherry State Yogasana Championship. She has been awarded Best Girl Student Award at Yoganjali Natyalayam in 1998-99 and was awarded the Best Yoga Personality at the Pondicherry State Yogasana competition in 2001. She was part of the Pondicherry Yogasana Association team to the National Himalaya Yoga Olympiad in 2001 in Bangalore. An excellent orator and promising writer, she has imbibed wonderful Yogic qualities in

her life. She has won numerous prizes in dance competitions and was winner of the Kamban Khazhagam Dance Competition (2003) and the Bharat Natyam competitions at Bharathidasan College in 2002 and 2003. She has also won the Daya Rajini Award in 2001 in Chennai as well as many other competitions conducted for individual and group dances. She has good choreography skills and has helped to choreograph numerous light group dances. She has performed in Yoganjali Natyalayam programmes since 1995 in Natyanjali at Chidambaram, ABHAI in Chennai and many conferences. She is a recipient of the International Yoga Scholarship Award for the Yoga Research and Education Centre, California, USA. Her role as “Nala” in Nala Damayanthi Charitram, “Kovalan” in Silappadikaaram, and as “Rama” in Ramavatara marked her as one of the best Bharathanatyam artists in Pondicherry. She also won the prestigious Michael Danckwerts Yoga and Cultural Excellence Award

from Sydney, Australia, in 2003.

 

She is the younger daughter of Mr. V. Dhanaraj, an Officer with the New India Assurance Corporation and Mrs. D. Malathi, a yogic homemaker.

 

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We hope that Lakshmi can have all your goodwill and blessings on this important day in her artistic life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yogacharya Dr.Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani

Chairman : Yoganjali Natyalayam and ICYER

25,2nd Cross,Iyyanar Nagar, Pondicherry-605 013

Tel: 0413 - 2622902 / 0413 -2241561

Website: www.icyer.com

www.geocities.com/yognat2001/ananda