Growing up with Bharatnatyam

For Ananya Kurup, Bharatnatyam is not an acquired but an innate talent that she manifested at a very tender age. While most children are learning to walk confidently, this little one started matching her steps accurately to the talas and bringing genuine expressions on her face according to the mood of the song, as required in any Bharatnatyam performance.

“I love to dance and I would like to continue dancing and learn as many styles as I can,” says the eight-year-old Ananya.

Her mother, who is also a dance teacher, always used to take Ananya along with her when she went to classes. Unlike other children who do nothing but kill time in such situations, a-year-old Ananya used to watch her mother show different mudras (hand symbols) and do a variety of foot movements. “A few months of keen observation and she learned over 50 mudras by heart, astonishing all of us,” says her mother Pravitha Kurup, adding, “She gave her first performance when she was one-and-a-half-year-old in an Ayyappa temple in CBD-Belapur.

Since then there has been no looking back and she also came to be given the child prodigy status as she mastered many dance pieces and enthralled crowds. “Although I started teaching her everything formally from the age of two, I felt that for her arangetram she would need expert guidance. So, we approached dance teacher Sushma Gopinath who trained and polished her skills for two months before the arangetram that she did when she was four-year-old,” says Pravitha.

Subsequently, Ananya started giving various solo performances in Navi Mumbai as well as Mumbai.

Till date she has given over 90 stage shows.

Another glorious addition to her achievements was when she got selected in ‘Dance India Dance Little Masters’ at the age of five. Since then, she has been a part of many reality shows like ‘Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega, Hindustan Kelkar Hunarbaaz’, among others.

“She only had time to give performances one after the other till she was seven. Even now we get calls to have her participate in shows but we decline as we think she should have a chance to enjoy her life and concentrate on academics,” says her father Ravindran Kurup.

Today, the eight-year-old has learned contemporary style and is also learning Kathak. Recently, she choreographed a contemporary dance item for around 12 students of Presentation Convent School in Seawoods.

How she has the talent to conceive steps, we wonder! As for that even her mother does not have an answer. “In a reality show performance she forgot the step I taught her but quickly improvised bringing her steps and at the same time matching the atlas accurately,” she says.

While Ananya wants to make it big in dance and also become a doctor, her mother’s wish is to make her well-versed in all the Indian classical dance forms.

Ask her if the prospect of giving so many performances made her nervous, Ananya says with a confident smile that she has always been “bindaas” and will continue to be so in future also.

Having become a known face has not made her smug. Her next big performance will be in 2014 wherein she’ll perform for the slum kids in Panvel who are taught dance by Pravitha and contribute for their welfare. Let’s hope the little one’s ghungru echoes everywhere.

Doing it right
While most children are learning to walk confidently, this little one started matching her steps accurately to the talas and bringing genuine expressions on her face according to the mood of the song, as required in any Bharatnatyam performance

Her mother, who is also a dance teacher, always used to take Ananya along with her when she went to classes. Unlike other children who do nothing but kill time in such situations, a-year-old Ananya used to watch her mother show different mudras.