Raa raa - tiptoeing into classical

I started learning bharatanatyam when I was 15 - later than most who generally start when they are children at about 7. I started learning with a group of girls who lived in the same apartment complex as me and I was the oldest member of the group.

The first Deepavali that came around after we started learning bharatanatyam, I decided to choreograph my own dance. We had only done some basic steps (adavus) and had not learned an actual dance piece yet. For any of you who are familiar with carnatic music, you might know the song Bo Sham Bo. It's a song about Shiva and includes a sollukattu segment (where the dance beats are said rather than just lyric words like "dhimitha dhimitha dhimi dhimi kita kita thom") and I just did it with the simple steps we knew so far.

Bharatanatyam for a while then started to feel very different to the other dancing I did as it was not a dance form I could bring to the songs I enjoyed listening to. I later came across a class where there was a fusion of bharatanatyam and bollywood and this was the revelation! I could choreograph bharatanatyam steps into songs I liked and listened to more.

This first one is less fusion and more straight bharatanatyam but with a movie song that I have always really liked. I actually choreographed this while lying in bed and decided to film it the same day. It's definitely not the neatest and I've had to stop myself from watching it again because I'm finding too many mistakes! I'm posting it anyway because I know I'm guilty of letting perfect be the enemy of good.

https://youtube.com/shorts/bu9TOgHTbog?feature=share

(for some reason I don't think shorts are supported yet by Wix to embed the youtube video directly)