Smitha Madhav

Biography:

Smitha Madhav is a skilled and active Nattuvangam player, Bharatanatyam dancer, occasional actor, and Carnatic classical singer. She is also a member of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR)’s roster of artists. ‘Balaramayanam Seetha’ must have been her more popular name. The husband of Smitha Madhav is a great-grandson of C. Rajagoplachari (Rajaji), who served as India’s last governor general before it became a republic in 1950.

Since Smitha Madhav comes from a traditional Tamil family, everyone in her family is trained in Bharatanatyam and Sangeetham. She started studying Carnatic vocal music when she was 4 years old and performed her arangetram at Ravindra Bharati in October 1995 when she was barely 10 years old. Smitha has a strong, melodious voice that she acquired through years of training and practise, as well as a wide vocal range.

She founded “Varna Arts Academy (VAF)” in October 2010 with the intention of introducing the younger generation to the joys of learning Indian Classical Arts. VAF is committed to providing disciplined and healthy training in the fine arts. Smitha’s mother was a teacher and her father was a finance director for several well-known corporations. She used to be the head of her own English Literature school, but she had to step down to raise Smitha.

She has a sibling who currently resides in the US and works in the corporate sector. She was exposed to the arts by Sri Pasumarthi Ramalinga Sastry, a student of Rukmini Devi Arunadale, and honed into a flawless professional dancer by Nritya Choodamani Rajeswari Sainath, the director of Sruthi Laya Kendra Natarajaalaya. Lalitha and Haripriya, sisters from Hyderabad, gave her intensive training in Carnatic classical music.

Smitha completed the Telugu University’s Diploma Programme in Music and Dance. She successfully completed the six-year diploma programmes at the Telugu University, and she afterwards enrolled in the “Indirakala Sangeet Vishwa Vidyalaya’s” Masters Programme in Dance. She also completed the Madras University’s Master of Music programme.

Smitha Madhav has performed throughout India’s major cities, as well as abroad the US, Australia, Dubai, Nepal, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam, where she has wowed audiences. She performed roughly 30 recitals and lecture demonstrations across the United States for the modest goal of raising money for Vegesna Foundation, an organisation that helps children with disabilities.

She performed concerts with the theme of leadership and management principles using Bharatnatyam, highlighting certain major ideas from classical Indian texts like the Ramayana and Mahabharata that can be used today. Additionally, she did dance fusions with dancers from various other dance genres, like Kathak, Odissi, Kuchipudi, etc. She even performed a Bharatanatyam-infused version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth play. The foreign audience praised it quite highly.