Dear dance

As she rose to fame with her music, playback singer Sithara Krishnakumar’s feet had forgotten about dance momentarily. But despite her busy schedule, Sithara always wanted to return to dance. Her new dance musical ‘Tharuni’ produced by Wonderwall Media Production talks volumes on womanhood. She conceived the project as an ode to all those who supported her in her success, including her parents and teachers.

With Tharuni, Sithara awakens the dancer in her, an art she has been in love with since the time she bagged Kalathilakam at Calicut University Arts Festival in 2005 and 2006. The singer also claims that Tharuni was nurtured by friendship and inspiration to explore her talents. “For the longest time, my love for dance was limited to wearing the chilanka and dancing two steps on Vidyarambham day. I have always wanted to create a semi-classical dance piece. My friend Mithun Jayaraj suggested it’s time I take the lead.

Lyricist Harinarayanan presented me with the meaningful verses of Tharuni.  Biju Dhwani Tharang guided me with the choreography. Sumesh Lal did justice to the visuals, bringing out the aesthetics I had in mind,” says Sithara who is also a disciple of Kalamandalam Vinodini.

The four-minute-long video interprets womanhood and feminine power in the world, which is always a representation of empathy, and she is celebrated as a goddess. “But people rarely interpret her as a normal human being. Women have breakdowns too. We feel anger, we feel inspired. We dream. Even while weighed down by responsibilities, we have a mind of our own. That is the idea behind Tharuni — for women to find parts of them filled with power and inspiration. Tharuni could also be seen as a manifestation of the feminine power in mather nature,” Sithara says.

With Tharuni, Sithara is once again longing to dance on the stage once the pandemic fog clears. “A month before the work of Tharuni started, I began my workouts and warm-ups. Being able to dance swiftly as I used to, made me quite happy,” she says, adding that the lockdown days really helped her get closer to Tharuni. “There is an increase in the audience for independent projects released on digital platforms too,” she says.

Of all the great responses she received, what touch Sithara the most was the encouragement of her parents. “I saw them sharing the link of the video on family groups and telling their friends about it. They usually congratulate me on my playback, but I have rarely seen them this delighted. They put a lot of effort into making me a dancer, and I am happy I could share with them. Even my daughter Saawan Rithu had only seen me dancing in photographs and videos before Tharuni,” says Sithara.