Unseen - to seen.....

Living in St. Louis and not asking for a varying weather is impossible. It affects the moods of creativity also. A cold front - Polar vortex - which froze my whole city into -15 degrees fahrenheit,  broke not only many water pipes in the region but also froze all our artistic adventures to some time. As we say "Prakruthi Devobhava" - which directly means - "nature is god" - through this polar vortex Prakruthi (Nature) did show its other face. It put a mood of awe to my intellect. This kind of weather cycle comes like Brahma's sleep ( although in theory Brahma's day or night lasts billions of years). This special respect for nature always gave me inspiration and new thoughts. Sometimes, I wonder, how lonely we human kind are.... We are sitting on a piece of small spherical land-mass called "Earth" and sailing in an infinite darkness. We do not know where we all floating. As I heard in my divine scripts - it is "Ananthantha Anantha" - infinite of infinite. I was watching a documentary on PBS on an expedition to Antarctica. Just realized that it was the bottom of Earth. How funny it may sound,  you go to the bottom of something, yet you don't fall off. Thanks to gravity otherwise all of us would have fallen. Laws of physics which are used in every part of life, leading to irreplaceable laws of chemistry with which we are all made. The most funny thought occurs in my mind is almost all the time. Since everything is an element like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen etc.... how these same chemical which we consume in the form of food, create emotions and feelings ? Because we use the same feelings and emotions performing arts,which are of course always reflect the life. I just asked one of friends who is a Ph.D in bio-chemistry and doing some research on cancer cells. "Have the scientists found out how these feelings, emotions get created ? There is this beautiful brain with millions of neurons, made up of complicated chemical structures, and yet these structures create what we call emotions and feelings. Are these non-elemental in nature ? Are thoughts non-physical in nature ? Can we use some chemicals to create the "feelings and emotions" as an abstract physical object. My thought process was to pin on the issue, that those chemicals which induce these ideas, can they also be used to physically formulate the feelings. Like a feeling of love in the shape of heart, feeling of anger like a shape of fire etc. I also know, these feelings are portrayed in paintings, through music, through dance or through theater. By reasoning, I guess, suddenly I started answering my own questions. I do not know if they are the right answers. But it is lots of fun to start thinking like this. So, I still look out everyday with excitement and look at the nature how beautiful it is, look at the changing shapes of clouds, soft nature of wind in spring- but chilly and deadly nature of the same wind when "prakruthi" get really cold in the winter. I realize, there is "Purusha" who makes her(Prakruthi) respond for each of his moves. The beautiful game of universe, surprise me every single minute. 

It is 3 AM in the morning. Not slept in enthusiasm and anxiety of the 5th dance festival. As we rolled the day I just smelled the fragrance of dance movements all around me coming from different corners of the World. The beauty of dance is invariably the most beautiful thing on the face of Earth. Being both physical and psychological and some time spiritual it always yielded a deep sense of satisfaction.

This weekend's dance festival is a great success on the part of all Indian population of St. Louis, which is getting together to present this beautiful festival, showcases its traditional dances - such as - Bharathanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Mohini Attam, Odissi. This year new addition of two more dance styles - Manipuri and Sattriya makes the St. Louis Indian Dance Festival more richer. Although, we miss Kathakali, we have its brother art-form from Karnataka - Yakshagana.

All the artists celebrate their wizardry and will definitely spell bound the audience.

A special group of Odissi dancers - 11 of them - is a special treat to eyes.

Well time has come to enjoy the beauty of human mind and body through highly sophisticated movement and story telling.

I will be clebrating the spirit of dancing with my co-musicians in my new production - "Te na vina ...Trunam api na chalati" . I feel nothing moves for me without dancing....

I am going to sit and watch this beauty... Are you ?

I witness every single day,  how so many beautiful things get created. They may be either a material creation or a conceptual learning, which may happen by old knowledge or by gaining new knowledge.

When I teach a small child in the class I notice how a human body reacts to the new learning. When I do the same dances, I also feel, how the same movement feels more polished after four decades of dancing. But it also sends a message, I feel the worn out parts of the body due to my oldage. But with all these thoughts churning inside me, I indulge myself in the beauty of nature. When I restarted speaking with artists for the 5th St. Louis Indian Dance Festival, I experienced so much of enthusiasm and happiness to come and show their talent. I am really thrilled to see their artistic achievement.

It is a blessing to stay in St. Louis, with such a great art loving place, where every single Indian tries his/her best to come and support art activity amidst their busy life. Dance and music in this city has become an integral part our culture. It amazes how these children run between two different cultures and yet showcase prowess in both. Applaudes to that ability....

I will be presenting a small piece with both Kathak and Bharathanatyam. Feel good to dance among the best dancers of the field. It scares me sometime. But once you are on the road driving, you do not feel the tiredness of travel anymore, because you enjoy the cruise... the wind .... the nature.... which makes you comfortable. In our case ... it is the beauty of human body, the elegance of rhythms,  colorful variations of emotional sketches etc etc... Every single performance is an experience, I love this experience. So, I welcome all of you to come and see me and my other 21 co-dancers who are coming from different cities of USA, India and Europe on april 19, 20, 21 in the 5th St. Louis Indian Dance Festival.... Catch you all later. Have a nice spring break.

www.sooryadance.com

St. Louis Indian Dance Festival ----- a great wonderful experience of art and comunity

It was a great meeting place of some of the great Indian classical dance Gurus and artists of this great country USA and from India. It was such a long preparation with so many people pitching in and making the festival such a wonderful experience. I believe in sharing our talents and artistic wealth with everyone. Initially I had tremors in my heart, whether I can pull this forward. B'cos doing a festival of this magnitude is impossible with one man alone. having wonderful friends such as Lily, Baskar, Nagendra, nirmala, Prabhu, Sridhar made this event plausible .... thanks guys.... other friends such as Sanjeev,mati, vinu, vinod, prahlad, rakesh, kumuda, anita, anita-vinu, lakshmi reddy, manisha, shalini, annuja, gajana, shubhi, keertana, adya, sameeksha ..... man .... the list too large .... This is an Indian dance festival every association pitched in Kannada association sent emails to its members and encourged all its members to support the 23 dance events .... gujarati association moved forward and not only sent the information to all its members, but also encouraged their team - "Nartana" representing Gujarath through Garbha raas.... Namaskar desi run by Rao Chilakala placed our information on their website .... The Indian Students of Washington University danced Bhangra so wonderfully .....St. Louis Indian Dance Festival truely represented the true spirit of Indian Diaspora of St. Louis area.... one dance teacher mentioned, an appreciative audience of St. Louis reminded her of the appreciative audience of Mylapore (a pure Bharathanatyam heaven);

With so much success of placing so many artists in this festival for the third time in a row... I believe all the St. Louis Indian Population is really showing up their rich dance traditions to west.... thanks to all of you.... my heart is still beating hard remembering the wonderful performances which Gurus Such as Mythiliji and Guru hemaji produced with an impeccable artistry of Sreyashi Dey, Roopa Shyamasundara, Sujatha Srinivasan, Ashwini, Lakshmi, Anjali, Soorya Performing Team, Patrick and many others .... was just over whelming

Good job everyone .... for those who missed such a wonderful presentation I will be posting a 15 minutes clip so you all can have an idea and get prepared for 2012.......

Thats it for now ....