INTERVIEW

Padma Shri awardee and the celebrated Bharatnatyam dancer Geeta Chandran has completed 40 years pursuing her art. She has imbibed lessons from eminent gurus and brought those beautifully to bear on the dance form she now excels in. She also enjoys an illustrious career as a choreographer and skilfully presents abstract notions of joy, beauty, values, aspirations, myth and spirituality through her performances. Chandran speaks to Guardian 20 about her journey as a dancer and the guru-shishya tradition among other things.

Q. You have been associated with Bharatnatyam since the age of five. How has the journey been so far?

A. Well, when I started it at the age of five, I did not have any idea that Bharatnatyam was going to be my profession and that I would be teaching it as well. It was my mother who wanted me to be an accomplished Bharatnatyam dancer. This was so because at my home, it was essential to learn one of the art forms, as education was never seen to be complete without knowing the arts. I grew up in such an environment. At the age of five she took to my first teacher. Having said that, academics were very important as well. It was a very structured kind of upbringing. I was a very conscious kind of kid. In my house, everybody was a doctor or an engineer and nobody was an artist. I did my graduation in mathematics from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University. Everybody at home thought I will go into mathematics.

But by the end of three years I knew I did not want to go for maths. But my father told me to do a master’s course, as in our house doing only undergraduation was like being uneducated and then I did my master’s from IIMC where my horizons were widened and I understood a lot about communications and expressing oneself. It also helped me in viewing things in a different perspective of creativity. Dance was all about creativity but I had never seen