Her parents were passionate about classical music and dance and they noticed the talent of their child at a very tender age and thus began the child’s musical lessons with Trivandrum R.S. Mani, the music teacher who would come home to teach her mother. Soon the child and her sibling followed their mother’s passion for dance to start learning from the famous dancer Kamala. The child, thus, started learning Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam from the age of five. Her father would take her to music concerts while her mother to dance performances. This is the story of Sumitra Nitin, an accomplished Carnatic vocalist and a Bharatanatyam dancer. “This exposure to both music and dance performances has been crucial to my becoming a musician and a dancer,” says the Bengaluru-based artist was recently in the Capital for a music performance.
Besides, R.S. Mani, Sumitra learnt music from her grandmother, the famous musician Ananthalakshmi Sadagopan, Neelakanta Iyer, noted violinist T. Rukmini, Bombay S. Ramachandran and renowned Guru Neela Ramgopal. Within a few years of her joining dance, Sumitra’s teacher Kamala left the country and she continued her dance training under S.K. Kameswaran and soon came under the tutelage of Guru Rhadha, sister of Kamala and a foremost exponent of the ‘Vazhuvoor’ style of Bharatanatyam. Sumitra acknowledges the support she received from her gurus and family members in becoming an accomplished musician and a dancer.
Advantageous for dancers
Do dancers get mileage if they have knowledge in music? Sumitra feels there is a great advantage for a dancer to have knowledge of music and is able to sing. She explains that last year she had premiered her dance production “Paalaya Jataadhara”and the unique feature of the production was she had sung and performed the nattuvangam in the recorded music track, composed music where necessary, done the choreography and also performed the dance along with her students. “All this would not have been possible without an advanced level of knowledge of music,” avers Sumitra.
Besides performances for over three decades, Sumitra has researched and delivered multi-media presentation on topics like “Music of Bharatanatyam”, “The Eternal Truths of the Veerashaivas: Vachanas of 12th Century Karnataka”, “Haridasas — Their Contribution to Sangita and Kannada Literature” and “Harnessing the Power of the Varnam”. She has been teaching Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam in her dance and music school Natyasruti in Bengaluru for over more than a decade now.
Recalling her schedule in July this year, Sumitra says that after celebrating her music school anniversary at Bengaluru, she rushed to Chennai to give a dance performance in the 75th birthday celebrations of her dance Guru Rhadha, came back to Bengaluru to celebrate her dance school anniversary and went back to Chennai to sing for her music Guru Neela Ramgopal's Parampara series. She feels happy that she could perform and pay her tributes to her Gurus in both the fields and while she was giving her vocal concert, both the Gurus were seated in the first row. “And my cup of joy was full,” she says before signing off.