Vaidehi
Dance
2.0 hrs
April 29, 2017 7:30 pm Saturday
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The performance begins with an invocatory piece that praises Sita as the embodiment of the trinity, the creator, sustainor and destroyer. The remover of despair and giver of all goodness.It follows by tracing the origins of Sita through the story of Ravana as told in the Adbuta Ramayana. This arc traces the arrogance of Ravana and his a boon that he will only die when he unknowingly lusts for his own daughter and how Mandodari unwittingly becomes pregnant and aborts the baby and hides it in the land of Kurushetra, this aborted child is Sita who has been born as the embodiment of the devi the female power destined to spell the end of Ravana’s reign of terror.The performance then moves on to the discovery of Sita by Janaka and her precocious childhood. It describes how even as a child she was so powerful that she could pick up Shiva’s bow playfully. This prompts Janaka to decide that whoever marries Sita must be her equal and organize her swayamwara accordingly.Rama’s encounter with this beautiful princess comes next in a piece taken from Ram Charit Manas where Rama describes how spellbound he is with Sita’s beauty when he first encounters her. The next act takes us to the debate between Sita and Ravana in Ashok Vaatika in a piece taken from Valmiki Ramayana, here instead of being cowed down by terrifying presence of Ravana she advises him to mend his ways. The performance concludes with another piece from Adbuta Ramayana. When she is asked to prove her purity, Sita challenges Rama to kill the thousand headed Ravana of Pushkar without defeating whom the victory would be incomplete. As Rama battles with the Pushkara Ravana he is overwhelmed and swoons in this battle. She grasps Rama's bow and arrow, and assumes the terrible form of Devi.

Organizer
Anuradha Venkataraman
I am a senior disciple of Guru Saroja Vaidyanathan and had been under her tutelage for 20 years. My performance career for the past 15 years includes many performances in India and Abroad. I have performed in prestigious festivals like the Khajuraho dance festival, Mahaballipuram festival, Nada Neerajanam, HCL series, Kala Nadam, Rasa-Sanje and under prestigious organizations like Sahitya Kala Parishad, Sangeet Natak Akademi, ICCR and Tamil Nadu Iyal Isai Nataka Manram to name a few. Under ICCR I have performed in Denmark, Poland, Germany, Luxembourg and Sarajevo I have choreographed four full length productions titled, Pratham Parth (Story of Karna) for this I received production grant from Dept. of Culture, Jananyey Namah (A Salutation to Motherhood), Vaidehi (The story of Sita and Ravana), Stories Unearthed (War representation in Museum) for this I received grant from India Foundation for the Arts.