Geeta Chandran is an Indian Bharatanatyam dancer and vocalist; Born: 14 January 1962 (age 57 years), Delhi; Movies: Vara: A Blessing; Children: Sharanya Chandran; Awards: Padma Shri, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Dance - Bharatanatyam.
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Geeta Chandran is an Indian Bharatanatyam dancer and vocalist;
Born: 14 January 1962 (age 57 years), Delhi;
Movies: Vara: A Blessing;
Children: Sharanya Chandran;
Awards: Padma Shri, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Dance - Bharatanatyam.
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She is founder and president of Natya-Vriksha and the artistic director of the Natya Vriksha Dance Company. In August 2016, she presented the fortieth arangetram performance by her disciples.
Chandran is the author of So Many Journeys, a collection of her writings that narrate her engagement with Bharatanatyam. Chandran is celebrated for her understanding of the art of Bharatanatyam and for her Carnatic music. She writes a dance column in The New Indian Express / Sunday Standard.
Chandran recently completed 40 years in dance following her arangetram in 1974. Natya Vriksha celebrates its Silver Jubilee in 2016.
-SOCIAL JUSTICE MEDAL bestowed by the Chief Justice of India, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, on behalf of the Institute for Gender Justice in collaboration with the National Legal Services Authority, Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India, 8 March 2007.
-SHAKTI HONOUR bestowed by Kala Kunj, a cultural NGO, June 2006
-DELHI RATTAN AWARD conferred by the Art and Culture Trust of India, May 2006. The award was bestowd by Smt. Gursharan Kaur, wife of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
-ROTARY INTERNATIONAL’s PRATIBHA AWARD, February 2006
-LSR ALUMNA AWARD, March 2005. This prestigious honour was presented by alma mater Lady Shri Ram College in its Golden Jubilee Year.
-ADJUNCT PROFESSOR at Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) Pilani, Rajasthan (2004-2006)
-SWASTHYA CHETNA RATNA awarded by the Heart Care Foundation of India for contribution to health awareness in society (October 2003)
-SENIOR FELLOWSHIP (two years) from Department of Culture, Government of India (2003). The fellowship was granted to pursue research and integrate compositions of the Haveli Sangeet tradition of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan into the Bharatanatyam repertoire.
-ACHIEVERS of the MILLENIUM AWARD (2001)
-DANDAYUDHAPANI PILLAI AWARD for Bharatnatayam (13 July 2001)
-BHARAT NIRMAN AWARD on the occasion of International Women's Day, for significant contribution to classical dance (8 March 2001)
-SCHOLAR OF PEACE FELLOWSHIP awarded by WISCOMP (Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace) of the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness The Dalai Lama (2000)
-NATYA ILAVARASI bestowed by the Sree Shanmukhananda Sabha Sangeetha Sabha, New Delhi (February 1999)
-INDIRA PRIYADARSHINI AWARD bestowed by the All India National Unity Conference (May 1998)
-MEDIA INDIA AWARD bestowed by Media India Foundation (November 1997)
-NATIONAL CRITICS AWARD bestowed by the Critics Circle, Calcutta (1997)
-JUNIOR FELLOWSHIP (two years), by Department of Culture, Govt. of India (1993). The fellowship was to pursue research in vachika abhinaya.
-SRINGAR MANI bestowed by the Sur Singar Samsad, Mumbai (1980)
-NATYA RATNA on graduating from the Bharata Natya Academy, New Delhi (1974)
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For Chandran, bhakti has been a way of life since childhood. The opening invocatory shlokam ‘Kripa samudram’ is also symbolic of her initiation into the world of dance at the age of five. Deeply impacted by the iconography at the Nataraja Temple in Chidambram, the dancer reflects that her early moorings established both dance and spirituality as the essential pillars of life. “My first guru (Swarna Saraswathy) belonged to the temple tradition. For her, dance was an offering. At home as well, the environment was ritualistic and spiritual, forming a continuum of sorts where my artistic and spiritual understanding started evolving together.”
The experience of devotion and engagement with bhakti transformed over time for the dancer. “Initially, it was about imitating my teachers, seeing them soaked in a certain tradition,” recounts Chandran. At this point, music played a major role in leading her into the nuances of the bhakti tradition. “I enter dance through music.
Sense of peace
As a student and practitioner of Carnatic music it is ingrained in my life and I was able to access the lyrics, poetry and multiple meanings through music.” She recalls the strains of Bhakti compositions rendered by great maestros playing at home all the time, since her father was a devoted music connoisseur. “The music used to make me emotionally charged and I would feel it intensely.” The powerful “Shiva Mahapanchakshara Shlokam” signified this discovery of form and content of bhakti through dance and poetry in the dancer’s life.
Reflecting on the experience of bhakti during the early days as a student of music and dance, Chandran says, “I used to feel a sense of peace after listening to, dancing to or singing an intense bhakti composition. It was difficult to capture the essence of what bhakti was, but it was experienced in certain moments – where I left aside thoughts about daily life, and felt deeply connected, vulnerable and charged.”
“Historically, bhakti has also been deeply political and subversive,” Chandran points out. Eventually, she began exploring the primary texts, studying the myriad interpretations of various scholars and delineating her own perspective through new works. Citing one of her landmark productions, ‘Kaikeyi’, Chandran reflects, “It is really important to question. Mostly, Kaikeyi has been seen as a uni-dimensionally dark character. When I read the Ramayana, I felt there was a lot more to her and decided to explore another dimension of her character.”
The oft-performed and well-known composition “Krishna nee begane baro” was presented in the evening’s performance in this vein – of questioning, exploring, and arriving at a different interpretation. Mostly the composition is essayed through the eyes of Yashoda, searching, calling and cajoling mischievous child-Krishna. “Who is really calling out to Krishna here?” asks the dancer. “Why, only a mother calling out to her son? It could also be Radha seeking her lover, or the devotee searching for their lord,” she says. The composition was presented with Chandran portraying all three roles, one after the other, the most riveting one being the devotee where she lays out an ambit of emotion, from restlessness, curiosity and fervour to devotion and gratitude.
When Chandran set up Natya Vriksha, her dance institute in Delhi, she was mostly teaching first-generation learners whose home environment was vastly different from her own early initiation into dance.
This called for new methods of teaching. Synthesising the artistic search with a commitment to pedagogy, Chandran opines, “Dance has changed so much in the present scenario, but pedagogy has not changed to that degree. For instance, we see a lot more group choreographies these days as opposed to the solo performances that dominated earlier. As artists, students and also as teachers, it is important to learn and unlearn.”
The performance concluded with a Sankeertan, evoking the dancer’s present focus of devotion – regular visits to Vrindavan to pay reverence to her spiritual guru. Aesthetically and spiritually, presenting dance as a sewa, is also where Chandran arrives back to her own beginnings, where dance was seen as an offering in the vast ocean of devotion.
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23/08/2019.
GEETA CHANDRAN :
========================================================================Geeta Chandran is an Indian Bharatanatyam dancer and vocalist;
Born: 14 January 1962 (age 57 years), Delhi;
Movies: Vara: A Blessing;
Children: Sharanya Chandran;
Awards: Padma Shri, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Dance - Bharatanatyam.
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Career :
She has worked in television, video, film, theatre, choreography, dance education, dance activism, and dance-issue journalism.She is founder and president of Natya-Vriksha and the artistic director of the Natya Vriksha Dance Company. In August 2016, she presented the fortieth arangetram performance by her disciples.
Chandran is the author of So Many Journeys, a collection of her writings that narrate her engagement with Bharatanatyam. Chandran is celebrated for her understanding of the art of Bharatanatyam and for her Carnatic music. She writes a dance column in The New Indian Express / Sunday Standard.
Chandran recently completed 40 years in dance following her arangetram in 1974. Natya Vriksha celebrates its Silver Jubilee in 2016.
Recognition :
The Government of India awarded Chandran the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour, in 2007, for her contributions to the field of art.
Geeta Chandran has been conferred the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Puruskar for Bharatanatyam for the year 2016.
In recognition of her vast and varied contribution to Bharatanatyam, Geeta was awarded the prestigious national award;
-"The Padmashri " By the President of India in 2007. -"Top Grade" granted by Doordarshan (June 2004). -"Outstanding Artist" status granted by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) (Sept. 2005).
-STREE SAMMAN: South Delhi Youth Congress honour to distinguished women achievers who had contributed to helping others and initiated social change. (9 December 2010 in New Delhi)
-KALASAGAR AWARD 2010: Award bestowed by Cultural Organization Kalasagar for Excellence in Bharatanatyam (28 May 2010, at Kerala Kalamandalam, Thrisshur)
-SALZBURG GLOBAL SEMINAR invitation to participate in Conference "Performing Arts in Lean Times", 21–25 February 2010, in Austria.
-DR. SADHANA INTERNATIONAL EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN AWARD2010 (Award ceremony on 21 February 2010)
-SARASWATI PURUSKAAR 2010 bestowed by the Kailash Mutt Trust of Nasik, Maharashtra (ceremony on 18 January 2010)
-TEN DYNAMIC WOMEN DANCERS OF THE WORLD, a book by Canadian author Anne Dublin put Geeta Chandran’s contribution to Indian dance in the league of all-time world greats like Anna Pavlova (May 2009)
-SALZBURG GLOBAL SEMINAR invitation to participate in Conference "Performing Arts in Lean Times", 21–25 February 2010, in Austria.
-DR. SADHANA INTERNATIONAL EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN AWARD2010 (Award ceremony on 21 February 2010)
-SARASWATI PURUSKAAR 2010 bestowed by the Kailash Mutt Trust of Nasik, Maharashtra (ceremony on 18 January 2010)
-TEN DYNAMIC WOMEN DANCERS OF THE WORLD, a book by Canadian author Anne Dublin put Geeta Chandran’s contribution to Indian dance in the league of all-time world greats like Anna Pavlova (May 2009)
-GOVERNMENT OF INDIA NOMINEE on GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE CENTARL SANGEET NATAK AKADEMI. (Five years, beginning June 2009)
-MEMBER, ACADEMIC COUNCIL, Benares Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh (For 3 years, beginning May 2009)
-MEMBER, ACADEMIC COUNCIL, Bhatkande Sangeeet Sansthan (University), Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (May 2009)
-LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD, conferred on 31 March 2009 by the World Congress of Women, to acknowledge sustained commitment to gender issues through classical dance.
-KISHORE KUMAR KALA RATNA Award, conferred on 26 December 2008 by the Kishore Kumar Memorial Club of Delhi, and presented by Mr. J.P. Agarwal, President, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee.
-KARAMVEER PURUSKAAR 2008 (National Award for Social Justice and Citizen Action) awarded by i-CONGO (Indian Confederation of NGOs) and the Khemka Foundation, for her advocacy through classical dance to further social action and citizen justice. (26 November 2008)
-MERI DILLI AWARD: Conferred by NNS Media Group (6 September 2008)
-MEMBER, ACADEMIC COUNCIL, Bhatkande Sangeeet Sansthan (University), Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (May 2009)
-LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD, conferred on 31 March 2009 by the World Congress of Women, to acknowledge sustained commitment to gender issues through classical dance.
-KISHORE KUMAR KALA RATNA Award, conferred on 26 December 2008 by the Kishore Kumar Memorial Club of Delhi, and presented by Mr. J.P. Agarwal, President, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee.
-KARAMVEER PURUSKAAR 2008 (National Award for Social Justice and Citizen Action) awarded by i-CONGO (Indian Confederation of NGOs) and the Khemka Foundation, for her advocacy through classical dance to further social action and citizen justice. (26 November 2008)
-MERI DILLI AWARD: Conferred by NNS Media Group (6 September 2008)
-GLOBAL LEADER : Bharatanatyam Dancer/Choreographer Geeta Chandran, Founder-President, Natya Vriksha, was selected as a Helmut Schmidt Fellow from India to participate in a "Young Leaders Forum" being convened in Stockholm, Sweden, 23–28 June 2008.
-The Young Leaders Forum is a new initiative of the InterAction Council of Former Heads of State and Government (Current Chair: Ingvar Carlsson, Former Prime Minister of Sweden) which was founded in 1983 to address long-term global problems facing humankind. Now, after a quarter century, the Council has decided to groom a young generation of world leaders by organizing a Young Leaders Forum in conjunction with its upcoming 26th annual meeting.
The Young Leaders Forum will catalyze a network of international colleagues from diverse countries and professions and disseminate the values important to the Council; peace and disarmament, economic revitalization and development, and the nexus of universal ethical issues.
Geeta Chandran was the only Indian in the Young Leaders Forum, and the only artist in this network of 21 Young Leaders selected from around the world.
-BOARD MEMBER, CENTRAL BOARD OF FILM CERTIFICATION (CENSOR BOARD): Nominated for 3 years beginning 2008. BOARD MEMBER OF KAMLA NEHRU COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DELHI: Nominated for 3 years beginning 2008.
-CHITRA KALA SANGAM ANNUAL AWARD 2008
The Young Leaders Forum will catalyze a network of international colleagues from diverse countries and professions and disseminate the values important to the Council; peace and disarmament, economic revitalization and development, and the nexus of universal ethical issues.
Geeta Chandran was the only Indian in the Young Leaders Forum, and the only artist in this network of 21 Young Leaders selected from around the world.
-BOARD MEMBER, CENTRAL BOARD OF FILM CERTIFICATION (CENSOR BOARD): Nominated for 3 years beginning 2008. BOARD MEMBER OF KAMLA NEHRU COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF DELHI: Nominated for 3 years beginning 2008.
-CHITRA KALA SANGAM ANNUAL AWARD 2008
-NATIONAL EXCELLENCE AWARD: Presented by the T. P. Jhunjhunwala Foundation for overall contribution to Art and Culture, the award was presented by Justice R.C. Lahoti, former Chief Justice of India, and Mr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, legal luminary and Spokesman, Congress Party. (25 January 2008)
-WOMEN ACHIEVERS AWARD: Presented by the Cancer Patients Aid Association of India (5 October 2007, presented by Mrs. Sushma Swaraj and Shri. Shatrughan Sinha)-SOCIAL JUSTICE MEDAL bestowed by the Chief Justice of India, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, on behalf of the Institute for Gender Justice in collaboration with the National Legal Services Authority, Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India, 8 March 2007.
-SHAKTI HONOUR bestowed by Kala Kunj, a cultural NGO, June 2006
-DELHI RATTAN AWARD conferred by the Art and Culture Trust of India, May 2006. The award was bestowd by Smt. Gursharan Kaur, wife of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
-ROTARY INTERNATIONAL’s PRATIBHA AWARD, February 2006
-LSR ALUMNA AWARD, March 2005. This prestigious honour was presented by alma mater Lady Shri Ram College in its Golden Jubilee Year.
-ADJUNCT PROFESSOR at Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) Pilani, Rajasthan (2004-2006)
-SWASTHYA CHETNA RATNA awarded by the Heart Care Foundation of India for contribution to health awareness in society (October 2003)
-SENIOR FELLOWSHIP (two years) from Department of Culture, Government of India (2003). The fellowship was granted to pursue research and integrate compositions of the Haveli Sangeet tradition of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan into the Bharatanatyam repertoire.
-ACHIEVERS of the MILLENIUM AWARD (2001)
-DANDAYUDHAPANI PILLAI AWARD for Bharatnatayam (13 July 2001)
-BHARAT NIRMAN AWARD on the occasion of International Women's Day, for significant contribution to classical dance (8 March 2001)
-SCHOLAR OF PEACE FELLOWSHIP awarded by WISCOMP (Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace) of the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness The Dalai Lama (2000)
*GEETA WITH HUSBAND
-GREEN AMBASSADOR AWARD bestowed by Artists for Empowerment, an NGO, on World Environment Day (5 June 2000)
-NATYA ILAVARASI bestowed by the Sree Shanmukhananda Sabha Sangeetha Sabha, New Delhi (February 1999)
-INDIRA PRIYADARSHINI AWARD bestowed by the All India National Unity Conference (May 1998)
-MEDIA INDIA AWARD bestowed by Media India Foundation (November 1997)
-NATIONAL CRITICS AWARD bestowed by the Critics Circle, Calcutta (1997)
-JUNIOR FELLOWSHIP (two years), by Department of Culture, Govt. of India (1993). The fellowship was to pursue research in vachika abhinaya.
-SRINGAR MANI bestowed by the Sur Singar Samsad, Mumbai (1980)
-NATYA RATNA on graduating from the Bharata Natya Academy, New Delhi (1974)
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Geeta Chandran: Dancing in devotion :
======================================================================For Chandran, bhakti has been a way of life since childhood. The opening invocatory shlokam ‘Kripa samudram’ is also symbolic of her initiation into the world of dance at the age of five. Deeply impacted by the iconography at the Nataraja Temple in Chidambram, the dancer reflects that her early moorings established both dance and spirituality as the essential pillars of life. “My first guru (Swarna Saraswathy) belonged to the temple tradition. For her, dance was an offering. At home as well, the environment was ritualistic and spiritual, forming a continuum of sorts where my artistic and spiritual understanding started evolving together.”
The experience of devotion and engagement with bhakti transformed over time for the dancer. “Initially, it was about imitating my teachers, seeing them soaked in a certain tradition,” recounts Chandran. At this point, music played a major role in leading her into the nuances of the bhakti tradition. “I enter dance through music.
Sense of peace
As a student and practitioner of Carnatic music it is ingrained in my life and I was able to access the lyrics, poetry and multiple meanings through music.” She recalls the strains of Bhakti compositions rendered by great maestros playing at home all the time, since her father was a devoted music connoisseur. “The music used to make me emotionally charged and I would feel it intensely.” The powerful “Shiva Mahapanchakshara Shlokam” signified this discovery of form and content of bhakti through dance and poetry in the dancer’s life.
Reflecting on the experience of bhakti during the early days as a student of music and dance, Chandran says, “I used to feel a sense of peace after listening to, dancing to or singing an intense bhakti composition. It was difficult to capture the essence of what bhakti was, but it was experienced in certain moments – where I left aside thoughts about daily life, and felt deeply connected, vulnerable and charged.”
Artistic search :
Moving further in her journey, as a young artist, bhakti emerged as a tool for aesthetic exploration, curiosity and critical thinking. Texts, stories and narratives posed the primary artistic challenge for Chandran. Her interpretation of various characters from epics and mythology also placed her at a precarious position, poised at the brink of traditional training and discovery of her own individuality as a choreographer. Marking this shift, she presented a Haveli Sangeet rendition. The ‘Govinda Vandana’ depicts the twin sides of Vishnu – as Jishnu, the invincible, and Trishnu, the fearless one.“Historically, bhakti has also been deeply political and subversive,” Chandran points out. Eventually, she began exploring the primary texts, studying the myriad interpretations of various scholars and delineating her own perspective through new works. Citing one of her landmark productions, ‘Kaikeyi’, Chandran reflects, “It is really important to question. Mostly, Kaikeyi has been seen as a uni-dimensionally dark character. When I read the Ramayana, I felt there was a lot more to her and decided to explore another dimension of her character.”
The oft-performed and well-known composition “Krishna nee begane baro” was presented in the evening’s performance in this vein – of questioning, exploring, and arriving at a different interpretation. Mostly the composition is essayed through the eyes of Yashoda, searching, calling and cajoling mischievous child-Krishna. “Who is really calling out to Krishna here?” asks the dancer. “Why, only a mother calling out to her son? It could also be Radha seeking her lover, or the devotee searching for their lord,” she says. The composition was presented with Chandran portraying all three roles, one after the other, the most riveting one being the devotee where she lays out an ambit of emotion, from restlessness, curiosity and fervour to devotion and gratitude.
New paths :
The penultimate Kabir bhajan resonated with shifting ideologies and coming of age as an artist – a journey towards interiority and quietude. Reflecting on her artistic experiments over the years, she says, “Interpretations are just perspectives. We must keep approaching and discovering them in different ways that suit our rational, contemporary minds. Context is most important, it keeps changing and provides new insights for understanding human nature.”When Chandran set up Natya Vriksha, her dance institute in Delhi, she was mostly teaching first-generation learners whose home environment was vastly different from her own early initiation into dance.
This called for new methods of teaching. Synthesising the artistic search with a commitment to pedagogy, Chandran opines, “Dance has changed so much in the present scenario, but pedagogy has not changed to that degree. For instance, we see a lot more group choreographies these days as opposed to the solo performances that dominated earlier. As artists, students and also as teachers, it is important to learn and unlearn.”
The performance concluded with a Sankeertan, evoking the dancer’s present focus of devotion – regular visits to Vrindavan to pay reverence to her spiritual guru. Aesthetically and spiritually, presenting dance as a sewa, is also where Chandran arrives back to her own beginnings, where dance was seen as an offering in the vast ocean of devotion.
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