Article - My Guru's greatest choreography: An institution that taught me to fall in love - Dr. Amrithasruthi Radhakrishnan

Every Guru Purnima, we celebrate the guru. This year, my gratitude extends beyond my guru to the institution she has cultivated over three decades: Natya Vriksha. I have come to recognise that the greatest choreography of dancer Geeta Chandran (Akka, as generations of us affectionately call her) may not be a work created for the stage at all. It is the institution she has built. To build an institution is among the most demanding acts of artistic practice. Choreographies conclude after the final applause, but institutions demand care every single day.

When I first entered Natya Vriksha as a young student, everyone around me believed I was rolling in a dance school, where I would acquire a vocabulary of movement and, one day, perform. Little did I know that this was where my becoming would quietly unfold. Today, whatever I have become, as a dancer, researcher, a teacher, administrator, and a cultural practitioner, has its roots there. Natya Vriksha gave me ground steady enough to take flight from, and a place to land each time I returned.

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