Dr. Siri Rama - Current Biography

Siri Rama is an Indian dancer based in Singapore. She is proficient in the styles of Bharata Natyam and Kuchipudi and has given numerous recitals and lecture-demonstrations in these styles all over the world. An innovative choreographer, Siri has a large repertoire of solo items in both styles; she has also choreographed several full length dance dramas. She runs her own dance school in Mumbai, has taught for seven years in Hong Kong, and has trained over a hundred dance students, several of whom have won prizes at prestigious competitions, and four of whom have recently given arangetram performances. In May 2000, Siri completed a PhD degree on dance sculpture, under the guidance of Dr. Rajeshwari Ghose, at the Department of Fine Arts, University of Hong Kong.

Siri started learning classical dance at the age of four, gave her first full length dance performance at the age of six, started her dance school in Mumbai, the Kanaka Sabha Centre for Performing Arts, at the age of fourteen, choreographed and conducted her first full length dance drama, Ramayana, at the age of fifteen, went on her first foreign solo performance tour to Germany at the age of twenty, and conducted her first arangetram performance at the age of twenty five. She has won several prizes in dance competitions throughout her school and college years, and was awarded titles of Singar Mani by the Sur Singar Samsad in Mumbai and Nritya Shivali by the Shivali Cultural Society, New Delhi. Archana Nrityalaya felicitated her in 1991 for being an outstanding dance teacher.

Siri has performed full length Bharata Natyam and Kuchipudi concerts in several cities all over the world, including several cities in India, the USA, Hong Kong, Germany and Dubai. She has also staged several dance dramas in Mumbai and Hong Kong, notably the Ramayana, a commissioned production of Buddha Charita, a dance adaptation of Girish Karnad's Hayavadana and Tyagaraja's Nauka Charitam. Siri's dance troupe at the Kanaka Sabha Centre was invited to perform for the Indian Prime Minister at an international conference in New Delhi.

Siri Rama has a special interest in the interaction of dance and technology. She was invited to choreograph and perform a full length Indian dance recital to the accompaniment of submissions to the International Computer Music Conference in Hong Kong in 1996; she also participated in the World Wide Simultaneous Dance Event on the internet in 1997 and in an experimental webcast of a solo dance interpretation of the story of the Silappadikaram at the University of Pennsylvania.

Siri is also extremely interested in the depiction of dance in the sculptures in Indian temples. She recently completed a PhD Thesis on "Dance Sculpture as a Visual Motif of the Sacred and the Secular: a Study of the Belur Cennakesava and Halebidu Hoysalesvara Temples," under the guidance of Dr. Rajeshwari Ghose, at the University of Hong Kong.

In Singapore, Siri teaches Bharata Natyam at alapana arts on Serangoon Road. She has also been invited to teach a course on "Dance Traditions of the East" at the Singapore Management University.

Back