Sowjanya Vinitha Rajaraman public debut on March 27, 2022; Little Theatre, Lower Hutt
Sowjanya Vinitha Rajaraman
Supplied Content (Edited)
Lower Hutt, February 15, 2022
Sowjanya Vinitha Rajaraman, another student of the Natraj School of Dance based in Wellington, will be performing her Bharata Natyam Arangetram (from 4 pm) at Little Theatre, Lower Hutt, on March 27, 2022.
This will be the fourth Arangetram for the School within a year.
Despite Covid challenges, Prabhavathi Ravi (popularly known as Prabha Ravi), Founder and Director of the School and Guru of Sowjanya successfully staged three Arangetrams with a live orchestra – a pool of local talents that she assembled from across the country for rehearsals and the performances during 2021.
The forthcoming Arangetram of Sowjanya will be one such event, planned to take place amidst many uncertainties and restrictions including the Red Settings under the Traffic Lights System of the Covid-19 Protection Network.
“With the ever-flowing Grace of God and Gurus, all the Arangetrams have gone well and were live-streamed across the globe with at least 1000 viewers for each of them which made it bigger and more diverse.
Sowjanya is the tenth student completing her Arangetram at the Natraj School of Dance.
About Sowjanya Vinitha Rajaraman
Sowjanya migrated to New Zealand from Chennai with her parents when she was seven years old. She is currently a year 11 student at Hutt Valley High School.
Ms Ravi said that she started learning Bharata Natyam from the age of 8 under her tutelage and that of her daughter Radhika Maisuria, a graduate of the Natraj School of dance.
“Sowjanya has always had a keen interest in Bharata Natyam and has given numerous solo and group performances all across Wellington for different events throughout her dance journey. At school, she enjoys studying Maths, Science, and French. Apart from dance, Sowjanya’s other activities include Indian classical music, Badminton, Netball, Bhajans, Slokas. She is also currently learning Tamil, her mother tongue and is so pleased to be able to learn her language in New Zealand,” she said.
About Prabhavathi Ravi
Prabhavathi Ravi started to learn dance from the age of three under Guru Kalaimamani Krishnakumari Narendran. After her Arangetram at the age of nine, she continued advanced training under Guru Udupi Lakshminarayan.
Ms Ravi has been rendering public performances from the age of five and has enacted various characters in dance dramas and ballets. With more than 100 solo performances to her credit under reputed Sabhas and associations in Chennai, she has performed for various festivals in Canada, the USA, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
Ms Ravi’s career as a dance teacher has spanned more than two decades.
She has choreographed and directed several dance concerts, dance ballets and thematic dance productions, proving to be a successful dance teacher and a choreographer. She holds the higher-grade diploma qualification in Dance from the Tamilnadu state government.
Awards and Citations
Ms Ravi has won several awards for her contribution to Dance and ethnic communities in New Zealand including the Queen’s Service Medal by the New Zealand government in 2017, Community Award by Indian Newslink for her contribution to the Tamil community in 2018 and contribution to Dance in 2019, Hutt City Mayoral Civic Honour Awards for Cultural Affairs and Community Group in 2011 and Cultural Award from Upper Hutt Multiethnic Council for contributions to Art and Culture in 2013.
She was a Finalist for Wellingtonian of the Year 2016 under the Education Category.
She is a Justice of Peace.
In June 2018, she was one of the judges at the TV3 Great New Zealand Dance Masala competition, the first of its kind held in this country. In 2019, She was also a Judge for the Hutt’s Got Talent competition at the Hutt Winter Festival.
Ms Ravi is a facilitator, coach, mentor, assessor, presenter, panel speaker and an experienced governor. She sits on various boards in New Zealand across various sectors such as health, sports, arts, regional council and education, bringing the much-needed ethnic and cultural diversity and thinking to the boards. She is regularly invited as a panel speaker by local and international organisations to share her knowledge and experience in arts, education and governance. She also works as Principal- Strategy delivery for Stats New Zealand, a government agency in New Zealand.
She also established and leads a voluntary group called ‘Namasankeerthanam’ for the past more than ten years, comprising about 80 people who meet every Sunday to sing devotional songs- bhajans for world peace.
About Natraj School of Dance
Established in 1999, Natraj School of Dance is a Lower Hutt-based Indian classical dance school. As its Founder, Director, and Choreographer, Ms Ravi has been training students from different ethnic backgrounds and age groups who have participated at festivals and major events held in Wellington, Auckland, Manawatu and Rotorua.
Every year, the School presents a dance production, providing an opportunity for the students to perform in public. The production also helps to create public awareness of the two different styles of Bharata Natyam, namely the Pandanallur and Kancheepuram Ellappa styles.
Photos by Rajesh Sukumar (RaShriRaj Photography)
