In the end of July I joined Usha Raghavan and her students in tour through South India, visiting places relevant to Bharata Natyam dance. The journey covered 2 states - Tamil Nadu and Kerala. During the tour we visited lots of temples and had workshops in Kathakali and Mohiniatam.
The first notable visit was Chidambaram temple, which is dedicated to Lord Nataraja (dancing Shiva). It is believed that this is the place where Shiva performed his cosmic dance – Tandava. Chidambaram is significant monument for Bharata Natyam as it includes all 108 Karanas (postures of dancing Shiva). As a great honor for our group was possibility to dance in front of Nataraja. Inspired by great spirituality prevailing there, we continued dancing on our own near the water tank.
One of the most beautiful temples we visited was Brihadeeswarar Temple in Tanjore (Thanjavur). It is distinct with its typical Chola architecturer- full of elaborated details. What I enjoyed the most in this temple was the lightness and spaciousness in colours and construction.
Eastern in Undine 20.03.2011
Krishna Fest 05.02.2011
On the 5th of February 2011 I danced for a small group of people in Krishna Fest in Vauban. During my 2 study years in Freiburg I have never met any Krishnaites. I didn’t know if there are any Krishna devotes in Freiburg. Recently I happened to meet one of them in the streets of Freiburg. From him I found out that celebration to praise the Lord Krishna will be held in Freiburg Vauban.
Latvia 2008-2010
After completing my Master studies in Freiburg in the end of 2008, I returned to Latvia and rejoined dance group Bharata. I was happy to be together with my old friends while training in dance lessons and dancing in performances. I actively engaged in learning new dance items, developing my dance technique and comprehension. This period was rich with new dances, dance events and performances. I learned about 10 new dance items. In average I had one performance a month in group or solo.
Balroom dance evening 05.06.2010
From the beginning of the year 2010 I started to help my mother organising Ballroom dance evenings in my hometown - Valmiera. Slowly I got involved in the process and started to practice Ballroom dancing as well. To surprise my dance mates and to enrich the evening program, I gave performance of Bharata Natyam in one of the dance events.
Maha Shivratri
We are regularly invited to perform in Maha Shivratri – festival to honor God Shiva. Also babajists (devotees of Sai Baba) invite us to enrich their celebrations.
Day – care center 28.12.2009
We have given a lot of charity performances for instance in schools, day-care centres for old people or for disabled.
Uttara-Savya (North-South) 04.11.2009
In a small and cosy theatre ” Kabata” we had concert with guest artist Svetlana Rizakova from Moscow.
Agni Yoga 27.03.2009
Performance in Reiki conference
Nritya Margam 16.03.2009
During the time, we had noticed that audience can get more satisfaction from watching Indian dance if the meaning of the gestures is explained or the story behind the dance is told.
Nritya Margam was a concert which included dance performances and lectures. Each of us had to prepare some part of the lecture material. We gave a short overview on Bharata Natyam history and classical dance repertoire (margam). We explained the meaning of the dance items we performed. With demonstrations we introduced audience to dance technique (hastas, pada-bheda, karanas, adavu, jati) and emotional aspects of dance (abhinaya, rasa, bhava).
