Dr. Rekah Raju enthrals the audience on Shivaratri
Shivaratri is the time of celebrating the Dance God Nataraja ( the other name of Lord Shiva ) the celebrations is done in a grandeur through a whole night of non sleeping chants praises and dance all over the world. Dr.Rekha Raju paid her salutation to the Dance God through Mohinattam in parts of Tamil Nadu – ( Chidambaram, Thirunallar, Kumbakonam, Thiruvaiyyaru, Mayavaram, Gangai Kanda Cholapuram etc. she was accompanied by Sri Praveen on Vocal, Sri Naveen on mridangam and Dr.Vinoth on flute. Mohinattam though knows for its grace Thandavam (a vigorous piece of Shiva ) was also presented with elegance.
About Dr.Rekha Raju
At the of 3 is when Dr.Rekha Raju’s mother JayalakshmiRaghavan decided to put her into the careful hands of Dance Guru Padmini Ramachandran to guide her in Bharatanatyam. The youngest of all in the whole class Rekha was involved in all the shows in just 6 months of her admission. Rekha mastered academics and dance together, taking a masters degree in business administration and a masters degree in performing arts simultaneously. A chartered accountant in the making Rekha, took up classical dancing as her full time career, Rekha founded her own dance institution NrithyaDhama Temple of Fine Arts with a motive of training tridents of all cadre whether poor or rich from rural or urban all students getting the knowledge of dance under the same roof. Though Bharatanatyam was the foundation of her dance career, she had started learning Mohiniattam too and it’s Prof.A .Janardhanan who moulded her as a fine Mohiniattam danseuse. Today Rekha is an exponent of Mohiniattam which many of the art critics have agreed to.
In NrithyaDhama students get trained in Bharatanatyam,Mohiniattam, Carnatic vocals, Mridangametc.more than 350 students have been trained in dance alone. She has students from different universities from the U.S and U.K who have come to India for a exchange programme. Dr.Rekha holds classes for house wives and working women also.
With the completion of 10 years of establishment of NrithyaDhama, 20 of Rekha’s students have completed their arangettam, more than 150 have completed their Chelengai ( gejje) Pooja. 10 of them have been performing as solo artistes and performing all over India, they even have been appointed as faculties in NrithyaDhama and other prestigious institutions.
Rekha has involved herself with various NGO’s like Cristel House, St. Theresa home for children, Freedom Foundation all of these which help in the holistic development of children suffering from various disorders and poverty. Rekha encourages all art forms and as a responsible youngster she imparts knowledge of different arts forms to students. In this context she organises a cultural event every month at her dance studio which acts as an eye- opener into the world of arts.
As a young exponent of dance Rekha has a lot of achievements to her credits, like a doctoral degree, many awards and recognitions representing Mohiniattam at various universities inside and outside India. She has received awards like NrityaRejini,NrithyKaumudi, Best young Dancer Bangalore Tamil sangam, Yuva Kala Pratibha ,SwarnaMukhi, NrityaVarshaDeepika Etc. Rekha received the prestigious Yuva Kala Bharathi award from the esteemed Bharath kalachar in 2016.
Dr.Rekha received the Bharath NrityaSamrat award at the Nagpur Dance Festival in February 2016. The performance was an eye opener to all as they were seeing Mohiniattam for the very first time. Rekha is being invited by the University to conduct workshops for college and school students to widen the knowledge of Mohiniattam in them.
She is the sole member of the expert committee panel for mohiniattam at the “Cultural Ministry Govt of India” ., an empaneled artist of the ICCR and an ” A” graded artist at the Doordarshan.
Rekha even toured the rural parts of Rajasthan, U.P through SPICMACAY ( Society for the promotion of Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth) where she conducted workshop demonstrations of Mohiniattam in government schools where the students are even deprived of basic necessities. Mohiniattam was not just a new dance form but a complete new word to them. Dr.Rekha received the prestiguous Krishna Gana Sabha endowment award and even received the NatyaMayuraTharakai award at MayuraNatyanjali in April 2017.
She received the Kalayogi award from the ICCR the same year .
Dr .Rekha ventured a new concept Dasa where she paid tribute to all saints of North India and South India as a devotee, this were saints of the north, south east and west, another feature of this performance was that thavilchendaagaswaram was also used
Rekha has performed at some of the prestigious festivals of India like the Gowri International Festival, Konark Festival, Soorya Dance Festival, Sangeethnatak Academy Festival, Kerala tourism’s Dance Festival, Delhi International Festival etc.
