Guru Smt. Rajee Narayan is a dancer musician and a composer living in Mumbai

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. She is the founder-director of Nritya Geetanjali, a premier dance school in Mumbai which trains students in bharatanatyam

Bharatanatyam

Bharata Natyam or Chadhir Attam, is a classical dance form from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, practiced predominantly in modern times by women. The dance is usually accompanied by classical Carnatic music...

, carnatic music

Carnatic music

Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...

and nattuvangam in addition to courses on make-up and hairstyling for bharatanatyam. Guru Rajee is the only female vaggeyakara and has over 200 carnatic music compositions to her credit.

Formative years

Smt. Rajee Narayan was born on the 19 August 1931 in Chennai India. The 11th child of Sri S. Narayana Iyer and Smt. Gangammal, Smt. Rajee started to learn Bharatanatyam at age 5, from her elder sister, Guru Smt. Neela Balasubramaniam, founder-director, Nataraja Natya Niketan and Smt. K. Lalitha, founder-director, Sri Saraswathi Gana Nilayam.

At the age of four, Guru Rajee commercially recorded the composition, 'Neraminchakura' (Shankarabharanam raga - Ikana tala). She also released records on story-telling songs for children and some plays. At that early age, she had started acting and singing her own songs in the movies that her father produced.

She participated in the dance-dramas and Kollata Jothrai festivals, conducted by the then-famous Dharma Chandrika Smt. Kadappai Lakshmiammal, through her sabha, Indumadar Lakshmi Vilasa Sabha, run specially for ladies.

Compositions

Guru Rajee Narayan has composed over 200 songs for bharatanatyam and has published some of them in her book Nritya Geetamala (2 volumes). Being an accomplished nattuvanar and a sangeeta vidushi, she has also released a book on the basics of carnatic music called Sangeeta Shartra Mala. She is also the author of Natya shastra mala, a book explaining the basics of natya shastram.

External links

• Official website