Kavya's Arangetram

Presented by Nritya, School of Indian Music and Dance
in Overland Park, KS, USA

Mayil dance by Kavya Nataraj
Kavya in the peacock dance

If you don't see the video in the window above click below to go to the YouTube page with this video:
Length: 3:09:15

Link directly to YouTube page at: https://youtu.be/iXMMs9n_emM
Note: This is an updated 720p (HD) video replacing earlier mpg, now deleted from YouTube
There were 171 views of the previous video before the update of the new and deletion (of the old).

Kavya Nataraj

Hema Sharma - Arangetram for Kavya Nataraj

Graduation / Recital Performance
Saturday 29 August, 2015 - 4 pm to 7 pm

Nritya, School of Indian Dance and Music
Presents the
Bharatanatyam Arangetram
of Kavya Nataraj

Guru: Smt. Hema Sharma
Guru: Jayashree George
Student: Kavya Nataraj
Compere (emcee): Janaki Sharma
Orchestra:
Vocals - Shri. Raja Govindarajan
Vocals - Shri. Viswa Moan Ammula
Mridangam - Shri Shivanand Murthy
Flute - Shri. Sai Kishore Ravisankar
Violin - Shri. Shiv Shankalp

Chief Guest - Sarah Hyde Schmiedeler

Parents
Father: Nataraj Sampath
Mother: Geetha Nataraj
Sister
Kruti Nataraj

Kavya's friends making statements, in order are:
1. Sanjana Raghavan & Roshini Tirumalai
2. Madhura Leninkannan
3. Himadri Narasimamoorthy
4. Preethi Sriraman

Dances:
Pushpanajali
Alarippu
Jathisawaram
Shanmuga Kautuam and Thirupugazh
Varnam
Padam: Bho Shambo
Padam: Prana Nadhan
Mayail (Peacock) Dance
Slokam and Thilliana
Mangalam

List of event times in the video

To help you locate items in the video.
NOTE: start times are in hours : minutes : seconds . frames
(remember there are 30 frames per second)

Start Times - Subject
0:08:31;23 - Pushpanjali Intro
0:09:37;15 - Pushpanjali performance

0:23:22;29 - Jathisawaram Intro
0:24:27.23 - Jathisawaram performance

0:31:42.17 - Shanmuga Kautuam Intro
0:32:55.11 - Shanmuga Kautuam performance

0:39:15.13 - Kruti Nataraj (Kavya's sister) sings (two songs)

0:48:21.16 - Varnam Intro
0:55:58.12 - Varnam performance
1:27:09.02 - Orchestra

1:36:42.11 - Padam: Intro
1:37:03.00 - Padam: Bho Shambo Intro
1:39:57.03 - Padam: Bho Shambo performance
1:52:09.20 - Padam: Prana Nadhan Intro
1:55:32.07 - Padam: Prana Nadhan performance
2:06:33.09 - Instrumental

2:12:28.02 - Mayil (Peacock) Dance Intro
2:14:18.06 - Friends: Sanjana Raghavan & Roshini Tirumalai
2:18:15.25 - Friend: Madhura Leninkannan
2:21:25.18 - Mayil (Peacock) Dance performance
2:30:43.18 - Friend: Himadri Narasimamoorthy

2:32:26.22 - Slokam and Thilliana Intro
2:33:51.25 - Slokam and Thilliana performance
2:47:37.00 - Friend: Preethi Sriraman

2:55:48.20 - Hema Sharma and presentations
2:56:22.25 - Kavya presents flowers to the musicians
2:58:30.25 - Hema speaks
3:00:05.01 - Hema presents the certificate to Kavya
2:50:06.04 - Kavya Nataraj

3:01:27.19 - Mangalam Intro
3:02:27.01 - Mangalam performance

3:07:01.27 - Dinner catered in the cafeteria
3:09:15.00 - end of video with closing title

 

This was in the 1,000-seat theater / auditorium of Shawnee Mission West High School. A dinner was given after in the school cafeteria with catered Indian food. Kavya dance most of the three hours in the concert with interludes for the musicians and one for her sister to sing. This was also Kavya's 16th birthday party and she was caked by her friends, right in the face. So that called for a lot of buddy selfies right there.

Kavya Nataraj
More pictures below

 

This was also Kavya's 16th birthday and her friends helped her out with an extra helping of birthday cake
This was also Kavya's 16th birthday and her friends helped her out with an extra helping of birthday cake

Kavya Nataraj

 

Kavya Nataraj

Kavya Nataraj on tech/dress rehearsal thrusting with a trident
Kavya on tech/dress rehearsal thrusting with a trident

Kavya Nataraj in Mayil (peacock) dance
Mayil (peacock) dance

Kruti Nataraj (Kavya's sister) sings two songs
Kruti Nataraj (Kavya's sister) sings two songs
Left to right: Shivanand Murthy (on mridangam), Kruti, Raha Govindarajan (vocals), Viswa Ammula (vocals) and Shiv Shankalp (Violin)

Kavya Nataraj

Kavya Nataraj

Kavya Nataraj

One of the many large images on Kavya Nataraj taken here and printed in India on canvas then mounted on frames and set up in the lobby
One of the many large images on Kavya taken here and printed in India on canvas then mounted on frames and set up in the lobby
This was early in the afternoon during setup.

Siging the guest book
Signing the guest book

In the side hallway during dress/tech rehearsal of Kavya Natraj
In the side hallway during Kavy's dress/tech rehearsal

Figuring out how to mount the backgrounds and other displays
Figuring out how to mount the backgrounds and other displays

 

In studio rehearsal pictures - Nritya school

Kavya Nataraj in studio rehearsal at Nritya on Thursday before performance
Kavya Nataraj in studio rehearsal at Nritya on Thursday before performance

Kavya Nataraj in studio rehearsal at Nritya on Thursday before performance

Kavya Nataraj in studio rehearsal at Nritya on Thursday before performance

Kavya Nataraj in studio rehearsal at Nritya on Thursday before performance

 

 

 

ADDENDA

Arangetram - A graduation / recital / professional debut to the stage for a student of dance. To get to this takes years of training. A Tamil word combining arangam (stage) and etram (to rise) meaning to rise, or ascend, to the stage.

Say: ah-rr-ahn-GAY-trum

Bharathanatyam also Bharata Natyam- traditional dance of Southern India, at least 3,000 years old which began as a temple dance.

Say: Bah rruh trruh NAH tee-um

Technical Note on streaming - We tried to run this as a live stream but could never get a "pipe" to upload on.

The login to the Shawnee Mission West's network never worked and calls to the school's IT people were hopeless, partly because they were gone for the weekend and whatever they put into motion didn't work. We badly needed the test on Friday to find out whether it would work from there. The stream depends on the bandwith of the connection and all they were offering was WiFi which is hugely slower than a directly-wired Ethernet connection. So I badly wanted to test the connection on Friday to see whether it would work. Had we gotten on we could have at least tested the WiFi connection from there. Someone remarked that maybe the login was only available on Saturday but as it turned out, the connection wasn't available on Saturday either.

So, alternate plan. Render to a file (slightly edited and with some titles inserted) and stream the file. This has been its own set of experiments and so far not as workable as direct from the camera via the USB adapter. So far I am getting a large number of dropped frames and haven't been able to get around that with numerous file-type and specification variations. I am currently rendering an mpg file which I will try out anyway (should be ready about 1pm Central Standard Time, USA) despites tests showing dropped frames. It still looks alright and brings audio along with it.

FInally, alternate, alternate plan. Just render a version and upload it to YouTube. It still took almost an hour and forty minutes to render, another ten minutes to copy to a USB, then to walk UMKC to upload because it would take hours from the house, which added 20 minutes to walk and about the same to upload. By the time I walked back (another 20 minutes) it was processed and ready to show. Even so, the file is only about 7 gigabytes and I expect the full finished file to be about 40 gigs. So you get an idea of the difference in image quality.

DVD NOTE: There is now a double-layer DVD with the full resolution (for the family and school) (also better titles as I have more time on the edit). The quality was good because I was able to speak to the lighting people and got them to bring up the lights so that my camera could shoot without having to boost the gain (measured in decibels). Normally I have no say in this and have to take what I can get (which can look ugly and "grainy.".