WOMAD

Shilpi Baruri

From India

2002: (for English text see below)La Danza, como otros aspectos de las artes tradicionales en la India, es tremendamente compleja y rica en matices. Shilpi Baruri es una de las mejores representantes de la antiquísima forma de danza Bharatanatyam del sur de la India, que se basa en los primeros textos en sánscrito sobre baile y movimiento. Es un baile devoto en solitario, a la vez sofisticado y estilizado, que une mimo, música y danza en estado puro. Shilpi empezó aprendiendo loa forma de danza del sur Kathak en Calcuta bajo la tutela de Thankamani Kutty y Kalamandalam Venkit. Ahora Shilpi se ha convertido en maestra, tremendamente solicitada como bailarina y entrenadora tanto en la India como en Reino Unido.2001 Biography Dance, like most other branches of the traditional arts in India, is fiendishly complex and intricate. Shilpi Baruri is a leading proponent of the very ancient Bharatanatyam form of dance from southern India which is believed to be based on the oldest Sanskrit texts about dance and movement. It is a solo devotional dance, which is both sophisticated and stylised, marrying mime, music and pure dance into a performance of riveting skill and subtlety. Shilpi started by learning the southern Kathak form of dance at the Children’s Little Theatre school in Calcutta under the tutelgage of Thankamani Kutty and Kalamandalam Venkit. It soon became apparent that her body was more suited to Bharatanatyam and she proceeded to study the guru of that venerable style, Padmashree Chitra Visweswaran. Shilpi has now become a teacher herself is much in demand both as a performer and a trainer in India and the UK. "I want to be perfect and I want all my students to be perfect when it comes to the way they dance," says Shilpi. "In classical dance the grammar has to be perfect but you can evolve your own forms." Shilpi has attained a remarkable freedom of expression through her disciplined devotion to perfection. Biography by Andy Morgan, June 2001Short biographyIntroduced to the dance at the age of three, Shilpi Baruri is aBharatanatyam dancer from Calcutta who combines both Thanjavur and Vazhuvur styles of the genre. This is Indian classical dance at its elegant and expressive best.May 2001