Dancer Srekala Bharath, a prominent disciple of the illustrious guru K J Sarasa was born in Chennai to C R Krishnamachari a businessman and Indira. Her elder brother Srikanth is a famous cricketer and younger brother Srinath is into business.
Srekala schooled in Vidya Mandir till class 5 and later at Vidyodaya, in the ICSE section. She completed her BA in Economics at the Ethiraj College.
She had her calling in dance at the tender age of 7 when her parents enrolled her in a dance school and had her arangetram at the age of 10.
Her marriage to cricketer Bharath Kumar took place when she was in the first year of college and her only son Abhishek was born a couple of years later.
All her family members had a role to play in her journey of dance. Her mother in law Jaya Krishnan, a musician encouraged her to dance even after marriage and used to take care of Abhishek when she had to travel.
Srekala has more than 900 stage performances to her credit in both national and international arenas and has performed both solo and as a group. She has completed an impressive milestone of more than five decades in her dance career.
Her stage presence is mesmerizing and her inimitable style, nimble footwork and exquisite abhinaya have helped her to carve a niche for herself in the beautiful dance form of Bharatanatyam.
She has travelled around the globe to more than 32 countries spanning across 5 continents where she staged her unique interpretation of Bharatanatyam.
Being a notable dancer, she has regularly featured in the Chennai City Sabhas during the December Music and Dance festival. This year for the December season, she is gearing up to present Deva Madhargal on the 3 celestial nymphs- Ramba, Oorvasi and Menaka.
After being associated with her guru for 30 years, she started Thejas School of Performing Arts –TSPA in 1999 in Chennai and has trained more than 400 students till date. This year her dance school will complete its silver jubilee. It is located at her home in Karpagam Avenue. Besides this, she also conducts classes on Skype.
Srekala has released DVDs on the concepts of learning the basics of Bharatanatyam along with margam, invocatory terms and a couple of varnams.
Her talent and achievements in dance have been recognized and the Government of India has conferred senior fellowship on Srekala.
She has to her credit a thesis on the Evolution of Bharatanatyam and adapting them to dance drama and has also presented papers at international venues on dance and its expression with relevance to contemporary times.
Srekala derives inner strength through her untiring dedication and devotion to the divine art form of dance. She has won numerous awards and accolades including the Kalaimamani award from the Government of Tamil Nadu, Bharata Ratnam from the Government of Sri Lanka, House of Commons recognition from the Government of Canada in Toronto. She was recently awarded the coveted Nrithya Ratnakara in Cleveland at the Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival held in April 2024. The latest award to her kitty is the Nrithya Perunjothi awarded in June this year by ABHAI- Association of Bharatanatyam artistes of India.
Her journey spanning over 5 decades in dance has been captured in a coffee table book titled ‘’Yatra’’ which she released in July 2019.
Thejas Bala Natyotsav, an event that she conducts every year, is a platform for talented young dancers from other dance schools in the age group of 8 to 12 years. This is the 15th year of the Natyostav.
Srekala is charming and vivacious and can entertain anyone with her lively banter. Her hobbies include reading, watching films and shows on Netflix. Her favourite films include- The Sound of Music, James Bond movies, Salangai Oli, Mouna Ragam or for that matter any Kamal or Rajini film.
She has a sweet tooth but had to cut down on sweets to keep fit. She includes all green leafy vegetables in her diet and her comfort food includes rasam, dal, steamed poha upma and arisi upma kozhukattai.
She is now busy preparing for the December season and also enjoys spending time with her grandson Archit, a class 5 student of Vidya Mandir.
As Anna Pavlova rightly puts it ‘’Dance is the purest expression of every emotion, earthly and spiritual’’.
Juliana Sridhar is a lawyer and columnist
