Exhilarating Dance Ballet Depicting Chinmaya Charitam
The dance ballet depicting the life of Swamy Chinmayananda performed in the Kuchipudi style by Smt. Sasikala Penumarthi’s ‘Academy of Kuchipudi Dance’ team on September 27, 2015 at Gwinnett Art Center spiritually enthralled more than 350 Chinmaya Mission Members and lovers of art.
Balakrisnhan, as a journalist, on his way (yatra) to Rishikesh (Photo: Dr. Narayan Bhat)
Earlier this year, the devotees had the opportunity to see the inspirational life story of Swamy ji in a The dance ballet depicting the life of Swamy Chinmayananda performed in the Kuchipudi style by Smt. Sasikala Penumarthi’s ‘Academy of Kuchipudi Dance’ team on September 27, 2015 at Gwinnett Art Center spiritually enthralled more than 350 Chinmaya Mission Members and lovers of art.
Earlier this year, the devotees had the opportunity to see the inspirational life story of Swamy ji in a full-length professionally directed documentary On A Quest. While it is much easier for a producer and actors of a documentary film to project the detailed life sketch of a person vividly in a dramatic fashion, it is extremely difficult to portray such life events in a dance form understandable by the audience. And that is exactly what Smt. Sasikala’s team achieved in their one and half hours Kuchipudi style graceful dance performance.
Kuchipudi is characterized with graceful movements, strong narrative, use of words/dialogues (Vachika Abhinaya) and mudras accompanied by typical Carnatic music, and is capable of enacting a life story of its subject matter.
Using this Dharmic powerful ancient media tool, Smt. Sasikala’s troupe enacted the Chinmaya Charitam in fifteen segments right from the birth of Balakrishana Menon in Kerala to his child hood, adult life as a journalist and revolutionary and ultimately meeting his Gurus Swamy Shivananda and Swamy Tapovan Maharaj and becoming a Sanyasi known as Swamy Chinmayananda.
The dance script was written by Sri B. N. Murthy; music was composed by Sri DSV Sastry from Hyderabad and choreographed by Smt. Sasikala Penumarthi of Atlanta. Smt. Sasikala Penumarhi commented: “Opportunities like this make a big impact on a dance student’s learning process. This allows students to learn time commitment, time management, stage presence, team work, and perseverance. Most of all, they feel accomplished that they are part of this big event. We greatly appreciate the importance you are giving to make arts an important part of the learning at Chinmaya Mission. Your commitment and encouragement to promote the arts is greatly appreciated.”
Final tribute to Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda. (Photo: Dr. Narayan Bhat)
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