Lalitha Sindhuri, a research Scholar in Department of Dance in the S N School of Arts & Communication at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) has been selected for the prestigious Fulbright-Doctoral Nehru Fellowship for the year 2017-18. She will be visiting the Barnard College (Affiliated to the Columbia University) between 5th September 2017 to 5th June 2018 and will be working under Dr. Uttara Asha Coorlawala. As a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow, Lalitha Sindhuri is working to understand the Western (especially American) pedagogical approach and theoretical framework in cross-cultural training in dance. Along with carefully observing the technique of Modern Dance in conditioning the body, she is also studying several movement sciences like body mechanics, applied anatomy for human movement to understand the dancing body. Her primary objective is to understand how the Contemporary Dance made changes to its Pedagogy in order to optimize the life of a dancer and how this concept can be related to the contemporary scenario of Indian Dance with a special reference to Kuchipudi Dance.
Lalitha is a young and talented Kuchipudi Dancer who comes from a traditional family of Kuchipudi artists. Being the great granddaughter of Late Vempati Venkata Narayana garu, probably the great ART was in her blood that lead to the natural talent in dance right from her very childhood and this talent was conditioned, disciplined and brought into shape under the tutelage of great guru Sri Vedantam Satya Narasimha Sastry garu.
Lalitha is not only brilliant in Art, but equally brilliant in academics too. Having completed her Engineering in Computer Science with flying colours, Lalitha took up her inherent ‘passion’ as ‘profession’ and successfully completed her Master of Performing Arts in Kuchipudi Dance from the University of Hyderabad which finally confirmed her path as an artist. Thus, an engineer has been transformed herself into a Kuchipudi dancer. Lalitha’s academic lust in dance did not end there. She decided to pursue her Doctorate in dance as a Junior Research Fellow in the Department of Dance, University of Hyderabad under the able guidance of Dr. Aruna Bhikshu who herself is a famous dancer, teacher and choreographer.
Apart from the Telugu states, Lalitha has extensively touched the length and breadth of the country to perform dances at Bhilai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Nagpur, Nasik, Tiruvanthapuram, Trissur, Mangalore. She has over 800 performances to her credit. Legendary dancers like Padmasri Dr. Sobha Naidu have affectionately appreciated her vibrant movements and impressive Abhinaya.
Lalitha received many prestigious awards like Balashree National Award from Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, Balaratna State Award from Dr. Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, Outstanding Young Person Award from JCI International, Young Women Achiever Award from Mahila Morcha BJP etc. Many titles adorned Sindhuri. To cite a few, Nritya Sarada, Nritya Vilasini, Natya Mayuri being some of the glittering feathers on the dancing cap of Lalitha Sindhuri.
Lalitha’s distinctions include being a graded artist in Doordarshan, a recipient of Senior Scholarship from the Ministry of Culture for advanced training in Kuchipudi Dance and a distinguished candidate to be qualified for National Level Junior Research Fellowship by UGC.
Lalitha is incidental in pasting dancing fragrance to the private melodies of Late Padmasri Ghantasala garu (Legendary Singer) and to the literary genre of Toleti Venkatreddi garu & Jandhyala Papayya Sastri garu (Karunasri) etc.
In addition to dancing, Lalitha also pursues her other interests like Meditation, Music, Books, literature and she writes a blog to speak her heart out.
In her journey forward, Lalitha Sindhuri wants to spread her rich cultural heritage derived from her elders to the coming generations.
Lalitha Sindhuri can be reached on email: lalithasindhuri@gmail.com