Bharathanatyam for M S Subbulakshmi Amma's Nama Ramayanam

The inception of our Lockdown Project - Nama Ramayanam
We were in the middle of a Global Pandemic when we decided to mark Bharathanjali’s much awaited 30th Anniversary - Online. Like the others, we have adapted to the digital era and have slowly accepted this as part of the learning curve when it comes to dance.
Right about this time, Anitha aunty delved into the waters of Digital teaching, Zoom classes and online choreography to adapt to the new normal and came up with the idea of Choreographing the Nama Ramayana.
Reading Ramayana daily and meditating on the name of 'Rama' brings a person closer to self-realization and God and thus absolves one of all of his sins. Nama Ramayana is the story of Rama written for this purpose. Apart from condensing the story, it helps the devotees to meditate on the different sterling aspects of Rama. Anitha aunty has always been moved by the brilliant rendition of Nama Ramayana by MS Amma, and was very particular that we use it for our production. Sri. Ramshankar Babu, readily accepted to play the Mridangam for all the intricate kanakku portions in the song and was kind enough to record it for our production.
Little did we know that this masterpiece would be choreographed and taught to 60 students on an Online forum and would be weaved together by the hands of technology.
Managing a group of this magnitude in person is a Herculean task by itself, but we took up the challenge of doing this Online! Having students participate from all over the world with different time zones, accommodating their availability, incorporating the entire dance school just with the intention of giving an opportunity to all dancers, Anitha aunty came up with such feasible rehearsal timings, even putting behind her own priorities. Inspite of the innumerable hassles that we faced due to the network issues and video lag, we managed to rehearse the piece and geared up for the performance.
Thanks to Anitha aunty’s nature of being prepared well in advance for any program. We all had our costume materials purchased and ready a year in advance for our Anniversary celebration.
This performance is something that will be etched in our minds forever. Each student was called for the video shoot individually, abiding by all the social distancing rules. The schedules of the video shoot spanned for almost two weeks, with dancers being given a time limit of an hour each to shoot their portions of the video. Even the students from abroad sent in their videos with a similar backdrop and costumes for the perfect coordination, which is one of Bharthanjali’s hallmark specialties.
The real task at hand was to bind all these individual videos into a wholesome piece to be fit on screen, while giving an equal opportunity to all. This means, 60 individual videos had to watched, their best portions to be selected and edited in a way that looks well coordinated and seamless. Anitha aunty, solely sat down to watch all the 120 videos (A full length and video and a close up video of each person) and condensed it to the beautiful version. This further had to be put together as a video collage for each frame and line of the Nama Ramayana. With the help of Mr. Iyappan, our Videographer, Anitha aunty and Sweta Shankar - one of Bharathanjali’s senior most students, we put together the entire production, the output of which you will be watching in the video above.
Original music: M S Subbulakshmi Amma
Dance Choreography: Guru Smt. Anitha Guha
Mridangam: Sri. Ramshankar Babu
Video choreography: Guru Smt. Anitha Guha & Sweta Shankar
Video and editing: Sri. Iyappan Arumugam