Kaavya

What is mushti?

What is katakamukham?

What is this?

Uhh mukulam.

Mukulam.

What is this?

Putoolam.

(attempt at saying Trishoolam) Very good.

What's this?

Soochee.

Good job.

(Music playing) Okay.

One time there was an elephant.

This is how you show elephant, like his ears.

And then he.

He greatly worshiped Vishnu.

So that's.

That's the God.

That's like the God of Gods.

In a river he was taking a bath.

And then there's an alligator.

Okay, this is the alligator.

So the alligator bites the elephant.

He's crying out in agony.

And he says, Vishnu, help me.

So, Vishnu, he looks at the scene and he takes his chakra and he kills the alligator.

And that's basically the story.

Bharatanatyam is very, very versatile.

The language of gestures and emotions used to tell so many different stories.

So the connection of any kind of Indian classical art to Indian culture and customs is very deep.

It runs very deep.

Modern day Bharatanatyam traces its origins back thousands of years.

to the ancient temples, royal courts and private salons of South India.

Back then, it was known as Sadir or Dasi Attam and was performed by women from hereditary dance families.

They were dancers by profession and were associated with either the temple or the Royal Court.

And they passed down the art form to their daughters and their daughter's daughters over generations.

In the early 1900s, this concept of a full length solo performance came into being, and then the arangetram took on shape.

It's the first foray of a young dancer into the stage.

I'm rehearsing for my arangetram.

My arangetram is basically like a it's a show.

It's only me.

It's for like one and a half, maybe 2 hours.

And it means ascending the stage, I think, because it's the first solo performance.

If your teacher says you can do your arangetram everybody's like, Oh my God, kind of thing.

It's very big.

It's not like a small show.

Everybody's going to be invited.

Everybody's going to be there.

It's very auspicious.

I'm always nervous.

Every single student that goes on stage is my child, so I'm always nervous anyway.

This just adds a whole nother level of complexity to it.

I also like that it's my Mom that's teaching me and not like a different teacher because I know her well.

But also that's kind of very hard too like the most challenging part, I'd say.

because she says so many things in one day, she gives so many corrections in one day I have to remember everything, and the next time I come has to be perfect.

And doing it again.

And again and again and again 100 times on the same day until you.

It's it's basically part of your- who you are.

Because I have to write it down.

Then I have to go over it over and over and over again.

This is the lineage that we come from.

So this is tracing our lineage back from the 17th century down all the way to K. P. Kittappa Pillai who is a direct descendant of the Tanjore quartet, and he was my teacher's teacher.

So the Tanjore Quartet were these four brothers that created the Margam, the basic steps of dance, and basically brought Bharatanatyam to the form that is today.

And they're considered the founding fathers of Bharatanatyam.

So I was five years old and back in the day we had one channel on TV.

There was this series, Bharathanjali, that talked about Indian classical dance, specifically Bharatanatyam, and I would sit and watch it completely captivated.

Charit (gait) movement of hands and feet.

At the end of the series I told my mother that I wanted to learn Bharatanatyam, and I said I wanted to learn it from the lady that was conducting the series.

Her name was Sudharani Raghupathy.

She's a world famous dancer, although I did not know it at the time.

I just knew that she was charming and elegant and captivating.

I'm still studying with her.

It's been 32 years now, and when I wanted Kaavya to start learning dance, I wanted her to get her start with Sudha Aunty.

And so I took her to India and when she was four and a half years old, Sudha Aunty tied her little sash around her waist and started her on her first steps and then she was there to give Kaavya her salangai, her ankle bells, and she performed for Sudha Aunty for about 40 minutes.

And Sudha Aunty took a look at that and said, You know, she's ready.

10, 11 is extremely young for an arangetram.

I'm pretty sure most people do it at around 15, 16, sometimes even 17, around right before they enter high school.

And I don't think Kaavya's even out of elementary school and that's extremely young and it's very, it's, it's admirable.

It's very admirable.

Aunty corrects the tiniest things, like your hand is like a centimeter off, but Kaavya still is patient about it and she understands, even at a young age, how important it is to do the best you can.

Now I have to remember all seven pieces which have similar movements, but like different things afterwards.

So I have to remember the movement and then the thing that comes afterwards that's not in the same piece.

There are so many now.

Not that many, but yeah, many to me.

As I was growing up, I remember her and her older brother just sitting in the corner of the classroom, just watching us dance.

And we would learn.

And I'm like, oh yeah, she's not like a little, little kid watching me.

She's an actual dancer now.

Towards the end of the varnam, you started to go back, because you're tired.

No, that's not it.

No, I know.

You're kind of at.

This is always late.

It's not that bad.

It is that bad.

Okay.

My eye is drawn to it.

It used to be when I did my arangetram it was just the arangetram.

It was just the little show inside the theater.

And over the years, it's morphed into this whole production where there's like all this dcor outside, usually like several big blow ups of the dancer's portraits and then dinner after and everything.

So we're doing the dinner after because you, you know, kind of in Houston can't invite people to drive an hour and then not feed them.

And this is very unusual with respect to arangetram dcor.

But over here in this large space, I have five canvases that talk about the different generations of the Tanjore quartet and then I have five canvases that talk about the different generations of a musical lineage that we also come from.

And so this is kind of going to be a museum, an ode to the historical greats.

She's asking if I shouted at my daughter today.

No, he was there.

It's all on camera.

I didn't say anything to her.

She forgets one thing then she starts crying.

It's a lot of pressure.

(music playing) (Music playing) We're just not doing this today?

Oh wait yeah, ohhh.

I would have stopped after that.

I know.

That's why I was very surprised.

Ohhhh okay.

One and two and.

Move your shoulder.

What?

Shoulder.

Ow ow ow.

You okay?

It's just sore, right?

Yeah.

Sore is fine.

Yeah.

Pulled is not fine.

Sprained is not fine.

It's not pulled, it's just been sore for really, really long.

I know.

You don't want to take a break and do hands?

Ohhhh I forgot.

Oh my God.

It will come together.

You have five weeks.

It will come together.

Okay?

Okay.

Come here babe.

Kaavya?

Come here.

Okay, let's just talk a little bit.

You have to help yourself.

You're making it-huh?

By listening to me, no?

This is not the end of the world.

What's bothering you?

You have one job and one job.

And I know it's a big job, but it's only one thing that you need to do.

Which is just do the best you can and enjoy yourself.

Okay, but who are these people?

They're your family, your cousins.

People who wish you well.

All of your friends, they're not going to they're not judging you.

Huh?

You know, I am enjoying it.

I don't enjoy watching you cry though.

Come here.

Come here.

I know.

So she's you know, she's ten and she's handling the pressure as best as a ten-year-old can.

And to me right now, I think my biggest concern, worry, anxiety, however you want to say it, is that I hope that I haven't put too much on my little ten-year-old.

Any anxiety I'm feeling or any kind of worry or any of that hopefully won't get to her at all.

I can't say that it completely won't.

I don't know.

We'll see.

She picks up on my, on my little mental stresses very, very quickly, that child.

The older students are all her friends.

They're all her akas.

Aka means older sister in Tamil and she calls them all aka and they're all very indulgent towards her.

And she has that.

But they're also my students.

She knows that they're not going to tell her that she didn't dance well.

You know, so when they go to her and say, Hey, don't worry, you danced great.

she almost takes that as, of course you're going to tell me that I'm your teacher's daughter.

I'm not so sure whether she actually has an outlet.

Well, rehearsal today was good because I didn't make too many mistakes.

I didn't.

Like it's better than normal cause usually I'll like make the mistake that nobody will notice, but I'll notice it.

And then I'll get really mad and I'll start crying and then blah blah blah end of story, you know.

Last week I was just forgetting everything and I couldn't recover because I hadn't really had practice doing that.

And last week it was like worse also because I wasn't feeling the best.

I had a sort of like a sniffle and stuff.

It wasn't it wasn't that great.

She said, Nobody will notice if you make a mistake, so just do something different and nobody will know that it's wrong .

So I sort of like figured out if I forget this, what will be the best thing to substitute it with kind of thing.

If I'm not having a good day with like a different teacher for like piano or something I would normally go to my mom, but like she's my teacher so I can't exactly do that.

If my grandma was here, I would definitely go to my grandma, but she's not here.

She'll be here for until my arangetram.

My grandma I'd just like go there and I just chill.

She'd, like, play music and do her work, but she'd still talk to me at the same time.

It's actually it's really comforting going to her.

When are they arriving?

Thursday, they're coming in Thursday, and my grandmother is very worried because she's, you know, she's 80.

Yeah.

There's all this scare.

She's coming?

Oh, that's awesome.

Hopefully everything will...

I'm just crossing my fingers and waiting.

To cancel or reschedule or in some way or form, but I'm hoping it won't come to that.

My dad is also coming from India but later.

People from Canada.

(Kaavya sneezes) And people from around.

Do not sneeze.

This is not a good thing to do these days.

So Kaavya dances best, we found out today in that room in our master bedroom.

Oh yeah?

So we can just have the arangtram there and all the problems will be solved.. And all the people will fit on the bed.

Right.

Yeah.

And we can just break the wall and get people... What?

I need a front row seat.

Well, you don't have a choice.

There's only like front row and a back row.

That's it.

(Music playing) <Jingling> Well the thing is, it's now come to be a regular thing.

Just like arangetram practice, right.

Because I've been doing it for like two years now.

So when I started, it felt like a really big deal and now it just feels like another thing in my life.

Four days before my arangetram.

This was almost 30 years ago.

I had severe ankle pain to the point where I had to I started a rehearsal and I just had to stop and limp off of the dance floor.

There was this whole thing we did at home where we soaked my feet in the water that you get after you wash rice.

Today's version is my husband helping Kaavya soak her feet in Epsom salts every night.

That's his thing he's in charge of.

So every night she soaks her feet in Epsom salts with lavender just to calm her down and it calms me down, too.

(music playing) How do you transition to your classic thing?

Oh gosh.

(singing together) I love that.

I'm very proud of it for myself for having invented this.

She's doing, Don't tease me this time.

Here, you see there are two birds.

Over there there are two deer and here that are two peacocks.

But me, I'm only one, why?

Yeah it makes so much more sense now.

Boys, focus.

I love you all, guys.

Let's do this.

The dcor is done, the gifts are packed, the food is ordered, the seating chart is done.

So just building up.

(music playing) If you keep a smile, nobody really notices if you're like not doing that well.

So all you really have to do is remember everything.

Keep like a decent standard and just smile real big.

And then everybody's fine.

Yeah.

(music playing) (music plays from television) What do I say?

Namaskaram Namaskaram Aunty.

Thank you.

Okay, you've got to go to bed now.

Thank you so much.

Hi.

(Kaavya makes goofy noises) Stop making noises.

Shake nicely.

Hakuna Matata (singing) It wasn't even that song, it was a different song.

Whatever it was lions in the jungle.

Smile.

You good?

Yup.

Okay.

And two and.

I welcome you all to the Bharatanatyam Ranga Pravesham of Kaavya Rajarathnam.

(humming) (music playing) (singing) (Music playing) Here Kaavya tells the story of Gajendra the elephant.

Who was a staunch devotee of Vishnu One day while bathing in the river, Gajendra is attacked by an alligator.

And cries out a prayer for help.

The piece is a entreaty to Muruga to speak his sweet honeyed words to his devotee who sings his praises and seeks his blessings.

Kaavya is immensely fortunate to have learned this piece.

directly from our Mahaguru, Professor Sudharani Raghupathy.

(Music playing) (applause) (Music playing) There's that beauty in that legacy.

If it has survived so many generations, then you can imagine how valuable it is.

And that's why I feel it is very important for us, not just as practitioners, but when we need to pass this on, not just pass on the legacy itself, but to instill into our students the importance that this legacy holds in their own lives and that it matters to them.

(Music playing)