Eighteen-year-old spoken-word
artist and accomplished Bharatanatyan dancer Shreekari Tadepalli will share her
work and insights this evening at Curley’s regarding her writing, performances
and involvement with the Bhumi Project, an environmental initiative of the
Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and the Alliance of Religions and Conservation
(a partner with the United Nations Development Programme).
Charting a nine-year course of social
and spiritual action to reignite an over-urbanized humanity’s neglected bond
with the Earth and its ecological support system, the five-year-old Project is
specifically geared to inspiring, informing, and connecting young Hindus
interested in stewardship of the planet and is named after Bhumi devi,
the female personification of Earth acclaimed in various Vedic texts. Find out
more at www.bhumiproject.org; a PDF document of the program can
be found here.
Shreekari’s twelve years' experience studying Bharatanatyan reflects this Gaiaist symbiosis via its
symbolic celebration of the eternal universe through that of the grace of
the body. The narratives of most solo performances embody switching between
numerous characters delineated by Carnatic classical music, movement and
expression. Click here to enjoy a sampling of Shreekari’s intricate performances from
her "Arts Supplement" Youtube channel (including an original interpretation of “Amazing Grace”). Below is a performance from 2010:
A classical
dance form of South India going back more than 2,000 years, believed to have originated
in Thanjavoor of Tamil Nadu and structured around a complex range of Adavu
(steps), Hasthamudra (hand gestures) and
Bhavabhinaya (facial expressions), Bharatanatyam is a mystical
reflection of fire in the human body, with four other dance styles, Odissi, Kuchipudi, Mohiniattam and Kathakali corresponding, respectively, with
water,
earth, air and aether. 
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