Three Chennai based Bharatanatyam dancers Roja Kannan, Priya Murle and Lavanya Ananth, toured the USA recently, for performances and workshops. They staged their much acclaimed production 'Bharatha Samudayam Vazhgave', themed on the compositions of the well known poet Subramania Bharathi. The trio has also produced other thematic presentations - 'Ardhanaareesar Kuravanji' and 'Annaiye Potri' which have been well received by rasikas in Chennai.

In this exclusive column, Priya Murle shares the trio's tour experiences. In her own words.

The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing... there are times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfill the function of a volume of words. ..... This is the dancer's justification for being, and his reason for searching further for deeper aspects of his art.

Doris Humphrey, 1937

My all time favourite quote on dance actually explains my predicament whilst I write this tour diary of our (Roja, Lavanya and myself) experiences of our recent North American trip. I realize it's so much easier for me to communicate through dance than through the written word!

During this two month trip - from May18 - July 11, 2006 - we performed in ten cities, conducted dance workshops, met so many interesting people, ate at so many different places, tasted different cuisines.

Professionally, it was a very successful trip as far as the response to our presentations was concerned. We presented a thematic presentation on Mahakavi Subramanya Bharati's inspiring poetry.

How we got together

Roja Kannan, Lavanya Ananth, Srikanth and myself, were selected to perform at Bharatiyar's Illam, at an annual event by Natya Rangam-the dance wing of Narada Gana Sabha in 2002. Since then, as a quartette, we have given many concerts, in and around Chennai.

In due course, we also received invitations to perform in North America. What seemed a distant dream then actually became a reality. We worked very hard taking care of many details ourselves. It was well worth all the trouble because apart from being well received, we had people giving us standing ovations, emotionally talking to us at the end of each show, older people blessing us . . .

The highlight of this tour, however, was that almost all the shows were fund raisers - for rehabilitation work of Tsunami victims, helping orphaned children, procuring Braille equipment for visually impaired children in India and Sri Lanka . . .

While Srikanth could not make it for personal reasons-Roja, Lavanya and I - had a lot of fun right from the word go.

First concert at San Diego

Our first concert was scheduled at San Diego on May 20, for the San Diego Tamil Sangam. San Diego is known worldwide as one of the best tourist destinations.. We had to tackle everything ourselves -right from sound check, lighting, makeup and also this was the first time we were dancing 'Bharatha Samudhayam Vazhgavae' as a trio! Our maiden performance went off very well.

After the performance we had little time to rush to the Greyhound bus station as we had to reach Phoenix, Arizona . . .

The bus ride was quite an experience! At the station, a ticket collector wanted to know if we three were 'seesters' (sisters), and when we replied in the negative he sagaciously nodded his head saying that we would have been in the last birth!

In the bus, we had many burly looking men with tattoos and bald heads that made Lavanya shiver, as one of them decided to sit next to her! We were cautioned repeatedly that we had to be very careful with our passports; so here were three Indian women with half-removed make up on their faces, clinging on to their bags. ...

Temple, the seat of culture

Detroit was also one of our stops on the tour.

Detroit is the largest city in the State of Michigan. The city is known as the world's traditional automotive center and an important source of popular music.

We had two concerts there - the first one was a fund raising performance for the temple at Canton. We performed the Prapatti Marga, an offering to the Gods, at the temple, which has a very active committee. We saw people learning yoga, the Vedas and mantras, all with utmost sincerity.

Right through the trip we noticed that the Indians have blended well with the American society without losing their identity or culture. In almost all the houses that we stayed at, the children were learning one Indian art - be it music or dance, and saying their daily prayers. The temple which was the seat of all religious, social and cultural activity in ancient India was abuzz with a lot of activity especially in the weekends-be it people coming to pray, to meet friends, or to witness a performance... amazing.

Dazzling saris and designer blouses !

After our programme at the temple, we shifted to The Hyatt Hotel, since we were performing for the conference organised by the Tamilnadu Federation. All the participants and delegates stayed at the Hyatt. The conference and all the entertainment was held at the Ford Auditorium.

People came here in such dazzling saris and designer blouses and ghagras that Indian fashion houses could take an idea or two from them!

The conference had many events going on. Competitions, light music programmes rendered by artistes varying from the evergreen P. Susheela and Jamuna Rani to Karunas and Grace of chinatanadoi fame! Earlier there was a competition held for local talent in music and dance. There was a wonderful pattimanram by Solomon Pappayya and his team . .

Workshop in Dallas

Our next stop was Dallas. Dallas is the third-largest city in the state of Texas, in the south of US and is known globally as a center for telecommunications, computer technology, banking, and transportation..

Here, we conducted almost a week long workshop organised by Madhushri Raj Sethuraman, who runs her dance institution here. A senior dancer and choreographer, Madhu, also hosted us in her home. It was a pleasure to teach her well-trained students and we must make a special mention about Madhu's daughter Shilpa Sethuraman, who is a dancer to watch out for... We had four batches of students who learnt various items though the focus was on practising the adavu patterns

Snapshots at San Antonio

We then set off to San Antonio for our next concert..

San Antonio is the second-most populated city in the state of Texas and is a popular tourist destination.

The programme took place at the wonderful temple auditorium-which had good facilities for makeup, lights and sound. We had our most interactive audience here. The audience enjoyed every nuance of Mahakavi Bharathi's poetic genius and we had a grand time thanks to our hosts Rajam Ramamurthy and Dr. Ramamurthy and Dr. Malathi Kohli.

We drove through that night, right after the programme to Houston. The programme was organised by the Samskriti Trust of Ratna Kumar and Anil Kumar. The programme was held at the Jewish Centre. The facilities in the hall, the technician, the sound and light and the space itself were excellent and ideal for a dance presentation.

Here we combined the two presentations that we had. We began with a traditional presentation - the Todaya Mangalam, a Dasavatharam and a few padams and bhajan. In the second half, we presented a medley of Bharathiyar's songs that won rave reviews wherever we performed it.

We also had a workshop at the Anjali Centre, the institution run by Rathna Kumar, a renowned performing guru and choreographer.

Next stop - Boston

In Boston, our host was Dr. Meena Subramaniam and family. Meena is Roja's sister and both sisters together have performed widely in India. A biomedical scientist, she also runs a dance school at Boston. We performed for the Manitha Neyam Trust and this programme was again a fund- raiser primarily to raise funds to procure Braille equipment for blind and orphaned children in Sri Lanka and India.

The organisers treated us to typical Sri Lankan food. The involvement of the audience - the lyrics were in Tamil - was truly amazing.

We also went to the Dragon Boat Festival held on the banks of River Charles, where the Tejas group - Meena, Sudarshan and Sowmya - gave a presentation in Bharatanatyam along with traditional Japanese and Chinese dances and music.

The Tejas group had showcased a short presentation in a crisp manner with very imaginative choreography and neat dancing.

Science and Art

We came back to Houston, which was our second home. This time we had a workshop with the students at Silambam, Galveston, Lavanya's institution. At the Houston Community College, we gave a lecture demonstration-basically a dance appreciation course to the American students there. The interactive session was well received and the students tried out our adavus and expressions.

We also witnessed the varunapuri kuravanji, staged by Padmini Chari and her students. Our late guru Madurai N. Krishnan had set the music. Adyar K. Lakshman had done the choreography. All three of us felt that we were in Chennai, witnessing a performance of a Chennai dance school . . .

Washington, D.C.: We had our programme for the Shiva Vishnu Temple, one of the oldest and most beautiful temples in the US. Venkatasubramaniam, who hosted us in his house is the Secretary of the temple organising committee and amazed us with his energy and multi tasking abilities! We had a very appreciative audience at the temple where we performed Bharatha Samudhayam Vazhgave.

Fans of Bharathi

Toronto is a Canadian city located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. Toronto is one of the world's most multicultural and ethnically diverse cities. Our host here was Thayagarajan, the President of the Bharathi Kala Mandram. Mahakavi Bharathi has a large fan following especially with the Sri Lankan community, which has a strong presence in Toronto.

In fact, they were the ones who wanted to see more of us after the show-wanted us to stay back and perform more -gratifying indeed. We were honoured by the presence of dancer Lata Pada-so beautiful and graceful- who also spoke at the end of our performance.

From Canada it was back to the US - to Columbus, the capital of the U.S. state of Ohio. And more shows and workshops followed . . .

Are dance tours all this rosy?

Well we had our share of disappointments and lows. We learnt a lot, learnt to read between lines, to be a little more aggressive, learnt to be businesslike... It was not easy to go back and forth across time zones within the US, to be checked/frisked time and again for security reasons.. But what is life without all these tensions! It made us treasure all the good times that we had, more. It helped us to take things in our stride. Believe in ourselves. Appreciate all the wonderful people who so lovingly took care of us . . .