Meenakshi Srinivasan : Drawing Inspiration from Krishna

Meenakshi Srinivasan talks about dance and her latest piece of work that she’s performing this season Danseuse Meenakshi Srinivasan has based herself in Chennai only in the recent past. Yet her roots in the city are very strong. She rests with ease and comfort with a professional career as an architect as with her intense passion for dance!Have you found it difficult to break into the Chennai Marghazi season? I get invited to perform in at least two sabhas every year and I am quite satisfied with that.Quite honestly it is not as if one has enough of an audience, especially during the season to watch you more than two of the sabhas. How do you prepare for the season?Preparation for the next season starts as soon as you finish with one season! The season is an extremely busy time for the artists in the orchestra and I try not to pressurise them further by surprising them with items that we have not already performed during the year at festivals outside of Chennai.What according to you are the highlights of crowded sabha laden programmes in December? A performer is always enthused and inspired by an audience and more so during the festival because there are so many rasikas coming from various parts of the world.What is your new work all about?This season I am presenting Madhuram Madhavam and it revolves around the love and longing of the soul to unite with Lord Krishna, explored through the personas of Andal, Meera and Radha. The most enjoyable part of such kind of work is the journey, the process, the enrichment that one gets putting it all together.What has been the inspiration for this path of thought?My father recited to me this beautiful simple verse from the Mukunda Mala Stotram by Kulashekara Alwar, it began with a discussion on Vaishnavism that set me thinking of the beauty of the concept of Krishna as the Divine Lover.What has the journey as a dancer been like? I always think to myself, why can’t dancing be easier? Why does one have to work so hard, everyday, relentlessly? Just one day of no practice and your body can feel it. But I have to do my part! After all it is a very small asking as the rest of it all comes from a larger force and I thank God everyday that I have been chosen!Do you believe dancers need to evolve out of their gurus?I draw a parallel between one’s evolvement as a human being and as a dancer. Personal evolvement is in four stages – the core values one develops from up-bringing, one’s own inherent identity that one discovers with maturity, who and what one draws inspiration from through one’s experiences and, lastly, increasing one’s own knowledge. The latter three are channelled by your core values. Core values, in the case of dance, are imbibed from the guru.