“Dance has taught me how to express things with grace. Secondly, it has brought out a lot of creativity in me, not just in dance, but to come up with ideas for various other projects, “thinking outside of the box”. Today’s woman dreamer, Jeyanthi Ghatraju is a dancer to know. A creative soul with a passion for teaching and giving back, Jeyanthi was recently, she was part of a workshop that was approved by the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest number of dancers performing a 25 min choreographed piece online.” Enjoy Jeyanthi’s inspiring story!

1. Tell us your story.  You are a plant geneticist by training.  What inspired you to pursue this graceful and ancient Indian dance of Bharatnatyam as well? 

 Hailing from a small town in South India, my story is on the lines of this following quote, “All of us need a vision for our lives, and even as we work to achieve that vision, we must surrender to the power that is greater than we know.” – Oprah Winfrey 

 What I describe here is absolute proof of the above quote as nobody – my parents, teachers in school, my dance gurus, even myself ever thought I would come this far with dance as my passion. 

I started my first extempore performance at 4, during the town’s annual temple festival, with a professional dance troop as a last-minute addition, due to the temple Executive officer’s request. With a bit of apprehension that I had never learned Bharatanatyam, not their student, and requesting a movie song to be played, the orchestra agreed to play/accompany and gave me the very last slot; their hope was that I would fall asleep by then. I never even had one rehearsal with them. By divine grace, I waited patiently, all decked up, and presented the piece enthusiastically although it was almost midnight! The troop’s guru was in tears and blessed me with a pen; I vividly recall the moment even today with so much gratitude!

 From then on, the urge to learn never ceased, albeit disruptions due to our move to different cities with my father’s profession. My first solo performance was at the age of 16, again, at another temple in an interior village. This had a special significance; after the performance, the villagers started pouring money to honor me; at that point, I decided to dedicate all the proceeds to the local temple. In as much as I could recall. the intriguing concept that dance could be a means, not just to entertain, but also to serve the community and the under-privileged, struck me quite firmly. Later, this concept became the ruling motto of Natyanjali, my dance institution. 

When I got to college at the Tamil Nādu Agricultural University, I was able to pursue a good 3 years of uninterrupted learning at the Shivanjali Temple of Fine Arts, Coimbatore, India until the day before I moved to Canada for higher studies in Plant Biology. I learned to let “dance flow through me, instead of forcing it on!” I hardly learned 3 items but a whole lot of fundamentals from Swami Shantananda’s teachings, being a cultural and service organization with the motto “Art, just for the love of it!” I was able to represent my university in various national events and even hosted an international exchange students’ team from the then USSR. Almost all items that my students and I present have been my choreography with blessings from my gurus and mentors. 

 It was quite interesting that when I assembled all my belongings into the 2 suitcases for my international travel to Canada for grad studies, out of sheer fortune, one of my professors reminded me about my bells (gunguroo). Little did I realize that I am being nurtured by destiny in my dance career! Indeed, I did perform at various occasions, including temple fund raisers as a grad student and taught a few dance students in Calgary, Canada. My blessed introduction to Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s teaching, “Love All, Serve All” was an important guiding force from that point on.

 The greatest turning point was my meeting in May 1995, with Dr Vasanthi Srinivasan, Founder of Natyanjali Ottawa. Just upon a casual talk for 5 minutes, she decided to hand over her 26 students along with 3 students preparing for their arangetrams to me! I worked on the assignments earnestly, commuting from Boston to Ottawa as I moved to Boston in 1996. These interesting moments were good omens for the greater things to come. Soon, I was able to present my first production, Subrahmanya, with a small group of students from here and Ottawa at MIT, raising funds for IDRF (India Development and Relief Fund) and in a couple of years for Ekal Vidhyalaya. 

Natyanjali, has been an offering of dance to serve the community with unassailable dedication, with myriad support from all directions. My philosophy towards dance has remained the same, based on the quote, 'Bhaaram dhariyithi Bharatham - Bharatham (natyam) reduces one's burden.  Many a time, as a dancer, I have felt how dance helped reduced my own burden. Especially, when my aspiration to complete a PhD didn’t materialize and I did a career change from being a scientist to software quality assurance in my early 30s to start all over as a junior test engineer. I can look back and just see how the dots were all connected by divine grace.

 My blessing has been that my students and I have performed at many senior centers, nursing homes, and raised funds for a vast majority of causes, for the past 28 years. 

2. How do you combine your passion for it in your daily life?

Depending upon one’s circumstance, we may not get all the time we would like to pursue our passion. What I have learned is to make full use of what becomes available, be mindful and enjoy the bliss. It could be 1-2 hours a week to start with, when one is trying to strike a balance between work, and family; I have appreciated whatever I got and be content with that for the rest of the week. What was a Saturday morning 1-2 hours bliss in the beginning has now become a 4-day/4-6 hours average bliss, after 28 years, even with a full-time job, working on a Master’s degree in program management from Brandeis, community service activities and managing a household with 3 generations along with a little puppy. Consistency, good time-management, and discipline are key factors. 

3. What inspires you to dance and teach?  What are some challenges you face while teaching with the Covid 19 pandemic?

Dance has taught me how to express things with grace. Secondly, it has brought out a lot of creativity in me, not just in dance, but to come up with ideas for various other projects, “thinking outside of the box”. By nature, I love children and excited to work with them, learning and teaching new things. That inherently brings in the much-needed patience when working with them. It is heartwarming to see children grow and evolve into beautiful and thoughtful youth; as a dance teacher I have gotten to share many special moments, sometimes the first person to know their small accomplishments and be a confidante in stressful situations. 

Challenges with the pandemic – Truly speaking, we have all become adaptable and appreciate the time and opportunity to focus on ourselves, our strengths, and things to self-improve.  It is still a bit of a challenge for the parents of very young children, to watch the class video and working with their child/ren on the class lessons. Many teachers would agree with me on working a lot more time, watching individual practice videos and sending feedback.

From my side, I have been blessed to continue classes online, in fact, we did not even take a summer break in 2020 and came up with a novel production called “Summer sizzler 2020”; all the students enthusiastically participated with their story telling and the adults with a chorography for “Shape of you”. At Natyanjali, in 2021, we completed the salangai pooja for 6 students (one learning remotely from CA), one arangetram last summer, working on two more for this summer. Personally, I was able to present three one-hour recitals that were watched by people from 7 time zones, from across the globe, thanks to advanced technology. 

4. You have received multiple awards and are also a choreographer and teacher of Bharatnatyam.  How do you use this passion to give back to the communities around you?

As you can see from this write-up, my entire dance career has been pretty much to serve the communities wherever I lived. Starting with fund raisers for temples, moving on to performing for various charities, raising funds for noble causes such as supporting someone’s medical expenses, to sharing an afternoon or evening with the elderly, ailing in nursing homes or bringing joy to seniors through an enriching recital, there have been several ways. As part of Natyanjali’s 25th anniversary, I planned an event, “Dance for all” and had two special sessions – one for the seniors taught by a Senior dance teacher from New England and another for children with special needs. The latter turned out to be quite an eye opener for teachers and parents. I am quite blessed to be able to think little beyond myself and my students - that is an important first step. 

To emphasize the synergy and importance of music to dance and vice versa, in 2019, I collaborated with a couple of music and dance teachers from the New England area and presented a medley of the time tested “Nottuswarams/English notes” with an all-youth ensemble. It was quite well received that led to a much larger group of 60 artists the following year to present the “Mahishasura mardhini stotram”, both for KHMC (Karnatic Hindustani Music Circle). 

I am working on a short production, “Arjuna and Hamlet”, bringing together the similarities in those two characters and the underlying message that is relevant for all of us today! This is for a MA cultural council grant. In that, I plan to feature theater and the presentation to be captured as a live art and if possible, with some live music. Here the idea is to bring dance, music, and visual arts together to reinforce a profound message. Let us see how that shapes up.

5. You are also involved with and volunteer for local charities including Vision-aid.  Tell us about your interest in these charities.

My motivation to start the conversation with my dance peers was to have an opportunity appreciating each other’s strengths beyond the realm of one’s own guru and style; a positive way of bringing the community together and working for a noble cause. Although I have worked on many collaborative fund raisers over the years, the long-lasting one has been for Vision-Aid. Vision-Aid productions are a truly enriching collaboration amongst like-minded artists, working with and learning nuances from renowned gurus from India.  It has been a true opening for so many dancers who have had to take a break. Many of the dancers have repeatedly shared on what a reassuring impact Vision-Aid productions have left in them to aspire and reach greater heights. 

Another recent undertaking is Natya Circle of New England – a community platform to promote Indian solo classical dance, dancers, and students. Since last April, we have been fortunate to feature a once-a-month premiere of two 30-minute segments by dancers from various levels. The idea is to give the intermediate level students an inspiration to continue their learning and have this as an objective goal; post-arangetram level dancers could use this as an opportunity to explore and present newer pieces. We encourage dancers to plan, practice and record the performance in an informal setting, emphasizing the learning aspect a lot more. The recital is streamed live and archived on our YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/NatyaCircleofNE

6. As the platform for women dreamers, what is your next big dream? 

As I quoted earlier, I am at a stage to gratefully surrender to the greater power that is beyond me and has carried me through this far, so beautifully. If I must list an aspiration, it would be to teach a special education child, an elderly person and/or at least one male student, for a few years and see them grow as a dancer. 

Thank you Jeyanthi for sharing your story with us! We are excited to have you in our global women’s network!

Bio: Jeyanthi Ghatraju is a choreographer, performer and teacher from Westford, MA. She owes all it all to her gurus, Guru Madurai Gopinath as well as Guru Suryakala and Guru Vimala Chandrashekhar at Shivanjali Temple of Fine Arts, Coimbatore, India for nurturing her passion for dance. Jeyanthi founded Natyanjali with a mission to perform for charity and bring the art form to those who cannot reach it (such as the Elderly in nursing homes). Jeyanthi and her students have been performing regularly at nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the New England area and have been raising funds for noble causes since then. Jeyanthi has 20 student arangetrams (debut) to her credit and completed 25 years of teaching in 2019. She has received multiple MA Cultural Council grants for her productions. Jeyanthi is affiliated with Alagappa Performing Arts Academy (Alagappa University, Karaikudi, India) and offers online Certificate, Diploma and Degree programs in Performing Arts. Over 25 students have graduated from these programs. Jeyanthi was recognized with the coveted United States Presidential Service Gold Award for her untiring community service (over 500 hours in a year) in 2013 and 2017. Jeyanthi is a Plant Geneticist by training and a Principal Quality Assurance Engineer by profession. Recently, she was part of a workshop on Tamil annai that was approved by the Guinness book of world records for the largest number of dancers performing a 25 min choreographed piece online. 

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