Sujatha Srinivasan's Bharatanatyam at Cleveland Museum of Art

Coming up, for Asian Indians in Cleveland and Akron is an opportunity to watch Sujatha Srinivasan and her talented students perform Bharatanatyam.  To celebrate the recent opening of the Asian Indian galleries at Cleveland Museum of Art, the Department of Performing Arts, Music and Film Development in conert with Sujatha Srinivasan has arranged for a FREE Bharathanatyam program, (on Sunday, May 11, 2014 at 2 PM).  

Sujatha Srinivasan, Bharathanatyam dancer

In this program, scheduled for Mother's Day, Sujatha Srinivasan and a group of her talented Bharathanatyam students explore the relationship between the mother and child in Indian mythology by drawing from episodes of the young Lord Krishna and his mother, Yashoda.

Sujatha Srinivasan is an internationally known Bharathanatyam exponent, known for her classicism and creative choreography. She learned the art under eminent gurus and as a performer, she brings over 30 years of performing experience to the art.

She has won many awards and titles in India and has participated in major prestigious dance festivals in India, Sri Lanka, Paris, Geneva, Canada, apart from several cities in the US. She has to her credit many composer-oriented and thematic presentations.   Sujatha Srinivasan is the artistic director of  Shri Kalaa Mandir–Center for Indian Performing Arts, which is one of the leading professional dance institutions in Ohio, nurturing and creating budding Bharathanatyam dancers.  She teaches Bharatanatyam at Cleveland Shiva Vishnu Temple in Parma and Solon Community Church in Solon.   

Her daughter, Shriya Srinivasan is an accomplished dancer and an up and coming vocalist. Her son, Suraj Srinivasan has won scholarships at his school.  The talent filled family lives in Strongsville, Ohio along with supportive dad, Srinivasan Ranganathan.

Cleveland Museum of Art Southeast Asian Collection

Sonya Rhie Quintanilla is the curator of The Cleveland Museum of Art's Indian and Southeast Asian collection.  Dr. Quintanilla is responsible for completing the reinstallation of the Indian and Southeast Asian collection that opened in December 2013. 

Sonya Quintanilla's book

Dr. Quintanilla completed her doctoral degree at Harvard University where her dissertation focused on early Indian sculpture. The book that grew out of this work, History of Early Stone Sculpture at Mathura, ca. 150 BCE–100 CE, provides the first comprehensive analysis and chronology of the earliest known stone sculptures from an ancient cosmopolitan center in north India.

Cleveland Museum of Art's  Southeast Asian collection is rated as one of the leading collections in this area, both nationally and internationally.  It is a must see for every Asian Indian living not only in Cleveland and Akron but the State of Ohio.  Further, it is an excellent educational opportunity for young Indian Americans to see and learn about

Sonya Rhie Quintanilla, Cleveland Museum of Art

their culture and heritage. 

The collection encompasses three areas:

• India proper, 
• the Himalayas, and 
• Southeast Asia. 

The collection covers the period of the entire artistic activity on the Indian subcontinent from the earliest (Neolithic) period until the 20th century.  It consists primarily of sculpture (in stone, metal, wood, terra cotta, and ivory) and paintings (book illustrations as well as devotional paintings on cloth as seen in the Himalayan tangkas), but it also includes some decorative arts such as jewelry and armor.

Recent performances  that occurred as part of the Performing Arts Series of Cleveland Museum of Art are:

• L. Subramaniam and ensemble; 
• Pre-concert talk by Sonya Quintanilla 
• Sufi Devotional Music: Asif Ali Khan 
• Nrityagram Dance Ensemble by Surupa Sen and Bijayini Satpathy;
• Pre-concert talk by Rajika Puri