Have barely got back from India and still settling into the routine before work travel catches up again..
Got a chance to take the little one to her violin recital as part of the music studio. She has definitely improved over time..
Here is a video of select parts of what she played..
and finally she obliged for a selfie in the car with me. There was going to be no photographs with me as I went against her wishes and shaved my head.. the beanie has saved me!
She definitely made me proud.. as usual we had the conversation about "if only she had practiced a little more, she would have gotten it perfect!" and as usual there was the eye rolling going on in the back seat..
in the words of the kids "we are good!"... apparently that means "No, thank you!"
It has been a great weekend! Months of preparation went into Jr.'s Arangetram. First time she is doing a solo dance performance, in front of a large audience with a live orchestra. It is a new beginning for her to take her Bharathanatyam (form of south Indian classical dance) to the next level.
Jr. has always loved dancing. Like most kids, she first performed THE CHICKEN DANCE! She would spontaneously dance to movie songs.. She then wanted to learn Bharathanatyam and tried out a local teacher, but she dropped it after a few months. Mostly ten year olds were substitute teaching her, as the teacher had to go to India for a family affair. Kumon took precedence and she stopped dancing. The next year she bugged us again and we decided to take her to Meena teacher in Sunnyvale. She loved Meena teacher. She has been learning from Meena teacher ever since.
Have been pretty much dropping her at the dance teachers house, once a week or twice a week, over the last eight or nine years, go do groceries, or have an occasional chai samosa at Bhavikas and go pick her up at the end of class and drive back home. It is a 20-25 minute drive, which was done with monotonous ease over the years.
There was a time, when I would go in and sit down to watch the lesson. That was when she was around 7 to 8 years old. Soon she declared that she doesn't want me sitting there and watch as she will "thappu panni" (make mistakes). So daddy was banned from coming to watch. She would practice at home, mostly with her sister competing for the mirror in her own cute way!
The only time I have seen her dance, is once a year during the Pushpanjali dance academie's annual day function or the occasional dance performance as a group in some temple or other. The costumes went from various paavadais to a borrowed dress , another borrowed dress, finally to her own dance dress three years ago!
If you read the posts in the links you will see three themes:
1. I keep missing my sister everytime I see Jr. dress up in a dance costume.
2. We are very critical parents, grand parents, relatives when it comes to her dancing
3. In spite of everything, Jr. loves to dance and she does it for herself more than anyone else
The dancing has also improved over the years. Last year at the annual day, I finally got to see her dance very differently from the previous years.
She wanted to do her Arangetram (solo stage debut) last year, but we sent her to India for an entire summer so she could spend time with my parents and brothers family. The event was pushed out to this year.
Meena teacher and Jr. put in a lot of effort in taking her dancing to a higher level so she could do the arangetram. Given Jr. is a bold girl and I have no stage fright, was confident that somehow she will manage the stage part. I had never seen her dance a single song from her Arangetram at any practice. So I had no idea what was in store.
There were only two things, that kept me up at night the last few months.
1. Her ability to hold one legged poses (my mom would eventually watch the video and she is a stickler for kids holding the Nataraja pose in an arangetram)
2. Her eyes getting irritated with the eyeliner.
Jr. has ended up in a hospital thrice with her eyes getting so irritated after an annual day performance because of an allergic reaction to the eyeliner. Was praying that it will not happen durng the event. She never wears it during regular class, practice or even the full practice she did the entire week before the event. Fortunately, she got no reaction this time. Her eyes were red, but not to the point where they had to be shut for hours.
The first time I saw her dance the numbers was last Friday at a rehersal with her uncles. Yes.. there is a flashback in this post, that tops all other flashbacks.
Many years ago, when Jr. was a year and a half old, we visited Melbourne for the first time. San's cousins who were little kids then, went to perform on the Mridangam and Violin at a local music school function. We were in the audience and at the end of the event they said "if Jr. ever does her arangetram, we will come and accompany her!".
We have talked about it many times and Meena teacher agreed to have them accompany her, after we showed her videos of them performing at events in Melbourne area. Practice tapes were sent and things co-ordinated and I was oblivious of all the effort that San and an army of people supporting this were doing. Continued to play chauffer..
Last Friday, at the practice, was blown away by the improvement in her dancing. Had no words.. just sat silently in the car on the way back home with a realization that :
1. my daughter was no longer a kid
2. if she could switch her face from anger to scared to happy to sad, I should be very careful with her going forward.. this is a girl who would put a puppy face and bat her eyelids, to get anything she wanted from me at 4 years old, but that was her only method.. now she has some acting talent, my brain went on high alert!
3. I don't have to worry about the event
On Saturday evening, she got on stage and danced. She did it for herself more than anyone else. She made us very proud that evening. Then she told us "we should tell Meena aunty that I want to come back to the regular class schedule".
Dancing on stage for the first time alone is all well and good, but it takes a lifetime of practice to improve at anything. Was very happy to hear her say that. As long as she keeps it up, we are happy for her.
The first step in her dance journey was finding Meena teacher and Pushpanjali dance academy. The second step was this Arangetram. The next step is scheduling the first class after the arangetram. The step after that, is to keep going...
Do not have photographs from the official photographer / videographer yet. It will come in a week. Did walk around with a camera, during the performance, through a side door that goes to backstage and took some shots..
A big thanks to her uncles Venkat and Narayanan (aka Varun) for coming all the way up from Melbourne to accompany her,
Smt. Jayanthi Umesh and Sri. Ashwin Krishnakumar for supporting her with the Vocal and Flute
and Meena teacher who is nothing short of a miracle worker.
Sometimes I wish Meena teacher would teach Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics etc. also..
Jr.'s aunt Aditi was the MC for the event.
Was too tongue tied at the end of the performance and opted not to speak. So I get to thank everyone in this blog for posterity.. the voluteers from the dance academy, friends and family who came from near and far, the folks we hired and the folks who volunteered for every aspect of the event, makeup, stage set up, decorations, sound, lighting, compering, taking care of the dancer, the artists, the attenees, video, photos, a very long list of things that I did not know, that have to work perfectly for an event of this magnitude to happen, our entire list of guests who came to the event or sent messages that encouraged Jr. on this event.
After my wedding, this was the first time we had my brother, sister , San's brother and sister all be here in one location. Some of them made it with their families. We had 20-21 folks stay in a house where normally 4-5 of us are there. Now we have an empty house effect after everyone has gone. The silence is deafening.
Two photographs that never saw the light of day.. they were taken during the still shoot for the invitation..
San doesn't get enough thanks from me, for making me see what could be, because she knows what our kids are capable of, has a wider imagination, and she is not soft on them like me.. THANK YOU SANGEETHA!
You were right, again! The girl can dance!
Here is to Jr. and her continued dancing journey...
The little one continues her violin practice and has definitely made progress, the slow and steady way!
Her cooking interests take a priority over other things but she does practice twice a week at least.
Over the weekend she performed at a Violin and Viola festival at Trinon Theater in downtown San Jose. Given I have stopped watching her in class because of my travel schedule and meeting schedule now overlapping her class... it was a treat to watch the improvement!
If you watch your kid every week, maybe not easy to see the improvement.. Watch her play after almost 6 months and you go "wow! that is a lot better now!"
There was a large group of students from multiple music schools who played 10 songs in the end for the audience. One interesting thing they did was play the theme from Game of Thrones with a Karaoke track in the background. I hope none of these kids are watching that serial as most of them are 10th graders or lower. I tried watching it on United when I got upgraded to Biz class once after hearing so much about it from other folks who are fans. Had to turn it off after a few minutes because of the violence and sex. The entire thing was pretty much that.
They played that well though!
Hope the kids keep up their engagement with music. It is not easy to post anything on Youtube which has copyrighted material. They promptly stop the video and I have to go agree to things before it comes online. However same thing is not true for content from my blog that gets copied over! Sad.. bigly sad. That is the world we live in.
where were we? Yes. Violin playing...
Here is to many more years of music in the kids lives!
Another year has passed with Jr. continuing to learn Classical Dancing.
Here is a short clip from her groups dance performance at Pushpanjali Dance Academy 20th annual day celebration.
She has come a long way since her first steps. While she will continue to get a barely passing grade from her mother and grandmothers and all the women in the family who have danced before her, I have only adoring eyes for my little darling.
She makes me so proud..
be it on the stage while smiling away..
and having fun or
off the stage at home posing for pictures..
and still having fun!
It is our sincere hope that she continues to practice and get better as time goes by!
Sunday, December 8, 2019 at 1:51PM ;)
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