“Life is better when you dance” Rekha Raju

Rekha Raju is a well trained professional Bharatnatyam dancer who has been in this field of art as a performer and a trainer. Her amazing performance is appreciated in many dance festivals. She has performed in many prestigious dance festivals like the Gowri International festival, Konark Festival, Soorya dance festival, Sangeeth Natak academy festival, Kerala tourism’s dance festival, Delhi international festival, and many more. She has very detailed knowledge about her dancing skills and adds her perfection to every dance move that she performs. Years of practice and performance took her dancing performance at a very high level. She is contributing to growing India’s culture through her artistic pursuits.

Key Responsibilities

• After her initial years of learning Bharatnatyam she has performed in many dance festivals.
• Besides being rewarded for several hon’ble awards she was bestowed upon the prestigious Krishna Gana Sabha endowment award this year.
• Apart from being a great dancer, Rekha Raju is an outstanding teacher who provides her vast knowledge of dance to her students. 
• She has received many awards like Nritya Rajini, Nrithy Kaumudi, Best young dancer Bangalore Tamil Sangam, Yuva Kala Pratibha, Swarna Mukhi, Nritya Varsha Deepika, etc.
• She has also opened her own dance institution Nrithya Dhama Temple of Fine Arts with the motive of training tridents of all cadre whether poor or rich from rural or from urban all students getting the knowledge of dance under the same roof.
• Rekha mastered academics and dance together, taking a master’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in performing arts simultaneously.
•   Rekha has involved herself with various NGOs like Cristel House, St. Theresa’s home for children, Freedom Foundation all of these which help in the holistic development of children suffering from various disorders and poverty.

Early Life and Education

Rekha Raju originally belongs to the Indian state of Kerala. Her mother’s name is Jayalakshmi Raghavan. At the age of 3, she has been put into the careful hands of Dance Guru Padmini Ramachandran to guide her in Bharatanatyam by her mother. She was the youngest of all the students in the academy. She has been involved in performing in all the shows in just 6 months of her admission. She had a performance every week which marked her excellence in dance.A chartered accountant in the making Rekha took up classical dancing as her full-time career. She founded her own dance academy Nrithya Dharma Temple of fine arts.  In Nrithya Dhama students get trained in Bharatanatyam, Mohiniattam, Carnatic vocals, Mridangam, etc. more than 350 students have been trained in dance alone.

She has students from different universities from the U.S and U.K who have come to India for an exchange program and have been trained by Dr. Rekha. Rekha holds classes for housewives, and working women, and almost 20 of them did their maiden performance in December 2016.

Key Achievements

In her 25 years of performing and teaching classical dance, Rejkha Raju has received many awards in her career. Some of the most famous awards are the Yuva Kala Bharathi award, prestigious Krishna Gana Sabha endowment award, Natya Mayura Tharakai award, and Kalayogi award.Dr. Rekha received the prestiguous Krishna Gana Sabha endowment award this year amd even received the Natya Mayura Tharakai award at Mayura Natyanjali in April  2017. She received the Kalayogi award from the Iccr last year.

Dr. Rekha received the Bharath Nritya Samrat award at the Nagpur Dance Festival in February 2016. The performance was an eye opener to all as they were seeing Mohiniattam for the very first time. Rekha is being invited by the University to conduct workshops for college and school students to  widen the knowledge of Mohiniattam in them. Rekha even toured the rural parts of Rajasthan, U.P through SPICMACAY where she conducted workshop demonstrations of Mohiniattam in government schools where the students are even deprived of basic necessities. Mohiniattam was not just a new dance form but a complete new word to them. They learnt some gestures basic mandalam of Mohiniattam. It was very well received.