Young classical dancers train for their art for several years and practice rigorously for their arangetrams and rangapraveshams. But after their solo debuts they seldom get opportunities to perform. To fill this need Santa Dasu, Suresh Kondapalli, and Sumathi Natesan founded a nonprofit, Yuva Bharati. This month Yuva Bharati presents two dancers, once again fulfilling its goal to give young dancers a stage to perform live before an audience.

he organization arranges four to five concerts a year. Each concert consists of two one-hour segments. The initial focus of this group is bharatanatyam and kuchipudi dancers. An annual concert is dedicated to dance schools, and dance teachers. This year several dancers like Neela Murty (bharatanatyam), and Rumya Sree Putcha (kuchipudi) have already performed.

On Aug. 6, we will see two dancers, Priya Mitty (bharatanatyam), and Saitejaswi Kondapalli (kuchipudi), perform their art. Mitty, a disciple of Indumathi Ganesh, artistic director of Nrittyollasa Dance Academy, presented her arangetram last September. Kondapalli, a student of Shyamala Karra, Nupur School of Dance, performed her rangapravesham two years ago.

“We have support of several dance schools locally,” comments founder-organizer Dasu, “and from other locations in U.S. such as Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta. This year we invited artists from other locations to come and perform in Bay Area. Dance schools from all over U.S. commended the cause. We hope to see Yuva Bharati chapters in other cities in two to three years.”

—Smita Garg

SUNDAY, Aug. 6, 4 p.m.
Mission City Center for Performing Arts
3250 Monroe St., Santa Clara.

(650) 565-8859, (408) 248-5211.

www.yuvabharati.org

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