Arya Tadepalli: The Dancer
After training nearly all her life for a single performance, senior Arya Tadepalli will take the stage in a traditional dance that is a part of her South Asian heritage.
“One thing I’ve been doing since I was three is called Bharatanatyam, it’s a form of Indian classical dancing,” Tadepalli said.
The history of the art dates back to the first kiloannum CE, it contains a series of dances that incorporates theatre and vocal aspects.
“I actually have my Arengetram this year, which is like a solo performance, a culmination of everything I’ve learned,” Tadepalli said. “So far, it’s about seven dances. It can look like they are right after each other, about two to three hours. I’ve been preparing for that for the last year and a half.”
Tadepalli equates the importance of the performance to a “ high school graduation.”
“It’s kind of a big deal, it’s like what I’ve learned over the years,” Tadepalli said.
The venue for the dance is a big part of the performance as well. Ensuring that the location can sustain the experience for both the performer and the audience is critical.
“I really want to have it at Franklin Park because it’s close to us, and it’s also like such a great place,” Tadepalli said. “It has a really great performing stage, and they actually set up a live stream, which I can send to family in India and Canada and Texas. And they wouldn’t have to brave Covid just to see this.”
Tadepalli said she hopes to host her performance at Franklin Park for personal reasons as well.
“I had my Kindergarten graduation there, so that’s kind of fun.”
Bharatanatyam combines music, dancing and facial expressions to tell stories. However, with Covid-19 still active, an element of the technique is obstructed.
“The problem is that at public performing art centers, they require performers to wear a mask and a major part of Bharatanatyam is called abhinaya,” Tadepalli said. “It’s like facial expressions, I’m basically telling stories through my dancing and a mask kind of hinders the whole process.”
While Covid placed obstacles in the way of the performance, it has also opened up opportunities for Tadepalli to re-engage with her culture.
“I’m actually trying to learn to read, write and speak Hindi and Telugu,” Tadepalli said. “It’s been something I’ve been trying to work on during quarantine. My mom has been finding me nursery rhymes, so I just write down nursery rhymes.”
Tadepalli is working to gain more knowledge of her culture and learn to balance who she is with her surroundings.
“There’s a lot of things I want to learn about my culture,” Tadepalli said. “We used to go to this place called Bala Vihar, and it was where I would learn Bharatanatyam as well as Carnatic music, which is like traditional music. I think I was like 3 or 5, but I remember learning how to dance then.”
But the Bala Vihar moved locations, out of reach for Tadepalli and her family.
“It would be like a three or four-hour drive just to get there, and then I started playing travel soccer, so that kind of took up a lot of time,” Tadepalli said.
However, Tadepalli is still able to experience and spend time with her culture at home with her family. A significant memory of quality time together was during Diwali, the festival of lights.
“For quarantine, my brother came home around that time of the Diwali. We were able to light firecrackers in our backyard for the first time I think, since I was born, like that was the first time we ever did that,” Tadepalli said. “But that’s like something that happens every year and people do that every year. So it was really fun being able to experience that for the first time with all my family around me.”
Tadepalli extends continuous gratitude to her parents not only because of their patience while sharing their culture with one another, but also creating a balance between her Indian culture and the American culture she faces.
“My parents have been able to pick what they believe to be the best part of both worlds,” Tadepalli said. “It’s never been about academics or something else, like my mom used to tell me every day before I got on the bus, ‘be good, have fun,’ so that’s their main priority is really that I just have fun with my life. And I appreciate that.”