Vijayawada: Journey with railways happy moment, says choreographer Srilakshmi

Vijayawada: "I was very fortunate by the grace of God because I have many happy moments in my career. As I was trained from eminent Gurus, I got a job in South Central Railway in cultural quota. I travelled extensively throughout the country to give performances representing South Central Railway. I received a number of awards during that time. Journey with railways is a happy moment in my life," said Dr Chinthaluri Srilakshmi, a senior-most dance master and choreographer having 45 years of experience.

Srilakshmi initially started learning Bhartanatyam from Vasireddy Kanakadurga and switched over to Kuchipudi. She had training from Kottapalli Padma and then joined in Kuchipudi Kala Kshetram. There she trained in Kuchipudi dance form from Vedantam Radheshyam, Rattaiha Sarma and Pasumarthy Kesava Prasad. She was also trained in music from PVG Krishna Sarma, the then Principal, Kuchipudi Kala Kshetram. During her training in Kuchipudi, dance legend Dr Vempati Chinna Satyam conducted a training programme for the aspirants to become dance teachers.

"Another happiest moment in my life is achieving doctorate in Kuchipudi dance for my thesis on 'Srichakram lo Natya sastra'. Basing on my thesis, I produced a dance ballet with a divine subject of Srichakra. I established that the vibrations and power that came from Srichakra are similar to the feelings and energy while performing dance. I would also like to share that I felt very happy when I produced a unique dance feature 'Kuchipudi Natya vibhavam' with only music," said Srilakshmi with a happy note during her interaction with 'The Hans India'.

After her voluntary retirement from railways, Srilakshmi started a dance school 'Natya Veda' in Rajahmundry to fulfil her ambition to provide qualitative training to the Kuchipudi dance students. About 125 students are in the institute to take training. Srilakshmi said that dance is also a career-oriented faculty as it gives courage to win in any situation with a positive attitude and this positive attitude is important to face an interview.

As a choreographer and dance director Srilakshmi produced dance ballets like 'Samata Jyothi', 'Namo Venkatesa', Sivoham', 'Krishna Tatvam', 'Chandalika' and she composed dance for 108 Annamayya Keerthanas, which is a record. Srilakshmi received many titles like 'Natya Visarada', 'Natya Nandini' and also lifetime achievement award in 2010 from different cultural organisations. It is very interesting to say that Srilakshmi's son and daughter are engineering graduates and also qualified classical dancers.

"Present world is becoming panic with COVID-19, whereas a virus is existing in the dance field also in the form of conducting the programmes without sufficient training. That is damaging the credibility of dance. This is in vogue only in our Telugu states. For that I urge all the dance teachers to encourage the students only after gaining experience," Srilakshmi said with a humble tone.

While concluding the interaction, Srilakshmi expressed her life ambition to have a pleasant, calm and peaceful place with divine atmosphere for conducting dance classes and also an auditorium for the audience to enjoy the flavour of the dance. She acquired land in Rajahmundry. She proposes to install the idols of Lord Nataraja, Nritya Ganapathi, Tandava Krishna and Nata Bhiravi, who represents the dance, and with a fully equipped auditorium to have programmes.