LECTURE with Aruna Kharod
Date: Monday, Feb. 13
Time: 7:00-8:30pm
FREE—registration required
Location: 300 Bushnell Ave., SATX 78212 (University Presbyterian Church)
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DANCE PERFORMANCE with Kaveri Natya Yoga Bharatanatyam School
Date: Sundday, Feb. 26, 2023
Time: 4:00-6:00pm
FREE—registration required
Location: Ruth Taylor Recital Hall
1Trinity Pl., Trinity University SATX., 78212
The Gita Govinda, a beloved Sanskrit poetic text authored in 12 CE, has enjoyed a vibrant life at the intersection of performance and religious practice. The SoL Center, Trinity University, and Kaveri Natya Yoga Bharatanatyam School, have partnered to create an innovative programming series that includes a lecture about the Gita Govinda as well as a dance performance. Presenters and performers will delve into the poetry and artistic-religious history of the Gita Govinda. The series aims to promote intercultural understanding and dialogue about South Asian performing arts and literary tradition as practiced by Indian American dancers in Texas today.
Aruna Kharod holds a Master’s of Music in Ethnomusicology (UT Austin, 2021) with a concentration in South Asian performing arts and is currently pursuing a PhD in Ethnomusicology (anticipated 2023). She is a scholar of South Asian arts and culture, with a background in Sanskrit and premodern Hindi devotional poetry. Aruna has trained in Bharatanatyam dance for 15 years, and in sitar (North Indian classical music) for almost a decade, having been awarded a Texas Folklife Apprenticeship in 2021 to learn Bharatanatyam choreography and solkattu (rhythmic recitation). She is an experienced arts educator, with nine years of community outreach, curriculum writing, and workshope presentation experience as a collaborator with the UT South Asia Institute and Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, TX. In the past, Aruna has served as an artist-in-residence, creating multimodal exhibit components and reaching over 7,000 audience members at the Blanton through her original Bharatanatyam and storytelling performances for an exhibition of Indian miniature painting. Aruna’s scholarship has been published in International Journal of Traditional Arts, and her research has been supported by the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, UT South Asia Institute, and Society for Ethnomusicology’s Applied Ethnomusicology section, among others.
Dr. Sreedhara Akkihebbalu trained under illustrious Guru, - Sangeet Natak awardee Smt. Narmada and Padmabhushan Smt. Kalanidhi Narayanan. He started his dance career in 1985 while he was resident in Family medicine. Dr. Sreedhara was the first male dancer from the state of Karnataka, India to have achieved the distinction of Top Grade Soloist for Television, by Prasar Bharati-Government of India. He is recipient of Junior and Senior fellowships from the Ministry of Culture, India. He worked with Sangeet Natak Akademi, an Indian apex body for dance, music and theatre for a Bharatanatyam project. Dr. Sreedhara is the President of Kaveri Natya Yoga since 2006 an organization he founded dedicated to promote and propagate the Pandanallur style of Bharatnatyam and Iyengar Yoga here in the United States. He has wide range of students ranging from kindergarteners to adults who perform for fundraising events, community outreach programs, and cultural and educational forums in Texas. Dr. Sreedhara has directed and produced successful collaborative Bharatnatyam productions of his own choreography and recorded music such as Ramayana, Shakti, Radha Madhava, Vikramorvashiyam and Yoga Vibhuti to the audience not only in Texas but other cities in USA. Apart from dance Dr. Sreedhara is well learned in Iyengar Yoga, Sanskrit and Hindu Scriptures. His expertise and passion helped found the first yoga school in San Antonio – The Esther Vexler Yoga School. As he strives to get a deeper understanding of Bharathnatyam, Yoga and Hindu philosophy his goal is to promote the joy and beauty of life through dance.
Register here. — please indicate if for LECTURE, DANCE PERFORMANCE, or BOTH. Many thanks.