Three generations of a family perform together at a dance event in Kochi

Arangettam 2022, by Natyalaya, a dance school in Muvattupuzha, saw 49 senior dancers perform alongside 13 youngsters

“It happened only because of Ravikumar Sir,” says Rejani KS, thrilled to be a part of Arangettam 2022, a programme where she performed with 62 dancers, including 49 seniors and 13 youngsters. She is overjoyed that she danced along with her 58-year-old mother, Shobha Menon and her 13-year-old daughter, Varalakshami. “We were three generations dancing together. I had never imagined this,” says Rejani who is a housekeeper at a bank in Muvattupuzha. Shobha works at a government hospital while Varalakshmi is a class eight student.  

All 62 dancers are students of Natyalaya, a dance school in Muvattupuzha run by K Ravikumar. Three years ago, he started classes for senior students in the age group 40 to 65. In the first week of October, he held the programme where “grandmothers, mothers and daughters,” danced together.

An employee of Federal Bank, Ravikumar has been teaching dance for the past three decades. Almost 25,000 girls have learned under him.

His foray into dance was initiated by watching his sisters learn. “My three sisters learnt dance formally; two of them — Kalamandalam Sumathy and Chandrika — became professional dancers,” he says.

With a 17-year age gap between his sisters and him, he was always around when they were learning , he says, “Though I have no formal initiation I was always watching and practising dance. This created an interest in me and I also learnt by observing.”

His father Krishnan Nair had started a dance school, Bharathy Nritha Kalalayam in 1964 at Perumbavoor. Ravi Kumar’s first stage performance was as a four-year-old. After his family shifted to Pindimana in Kothamangalam, he continued his studies, all the while participating in dance at his sister’s place. In 1978, he got an A grade in Bharatanatyam at the Kerala State Youth festival. Simultaneously he studied a job-oriented course conducted by Federal Bank. Meanwhile, his sister Sumathy started a dance school in Perambavoor, where he began assisting.

“Guru r Rajaratnam Pillai was invited from Chennai to teach my sister dance,” says Ravikumar adding that he took that opportunity to learn under him. “It was a golden chance for me.”