Sitakumari

Sitakumari began her dance training at the age of 5 when she was initiated in the oldest Indian Classical Dance style of Bharatanatyam by her mother, Mangalam Iyer, student of the famed Ram Gopal. Following her Arangetram, or dance debut, she then went on to perform widely especially in the UK and in Europe as a classical dancer.

 Following her ambition to develop a new contemporary form based on the traditional style but adapted to be more accessible to a 20th Century audience likely to come from many cultural traditions and without the constraints of the strictly classical form meant a further four years of study and development at the end of which a new unique storytelling style of dance was launched, the style in which she now performs and teaches. Energetic, vibrant, powerful, colourful but still very strongly dance with a purpose and emotionally stirring with music from worldwide sources to match, it is Indian Dance in the 20th Century, and nothing like you have ever seen before!  

 A challenge to her dance came in the form of the publishing of the book, 'The Heartstone Odyssey', in 1988 following which, working together with the author, new choreography meant the development of both social and environmental themes to the performances. This led to exciting new performance venues such as the Cutty Sark, Greenwich Observatory and Coventry Cathedral, the City Arts Centre in Edinburgh as part of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and working in collaboration with other artists, including audio-visual pieces in performance combined with dance.

 In 1990, she helped establish Heartstone, the children's voluntary organisation dedicated to breaking down barriers of culture and race and building friendship across many forms of social division which gave an added dimension to her performances at venues including the South Bank in London, Manchester Cathedral, the Nottingham Albert Hall and the Royal Northern College of Music.

 Her latest show, 'Mythologies' opened in April 1999 at Eden Court Theatre in the Highlands of Scotland and is currently touring across the UK with a culmination at York Minster in November. It  includes stories taken from the distant past and from the origins of the dance in Southern India, to the beginnings of contact between Britain and India told through the story of a shipwreck and the sharks that once surrounded it, the tragic fate of the North American Indians with a surprising twist in the tail, and into the present time with the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

 For details of all performances, please contact HEARTSTONE at Mayfield, High Street, Dingwall, IV15 9SS.

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