Focused on southern Indian classical bharatanatyam dance and music, this hour-long documentary consists mostly of performance and interviews. The performers come from a group called Kalanjali: Dances of India that maintains performers in Chennai, India, and a dance academy in Berkeley, CA, USA. Our documentary was filmed in the San Francisco Bay Area. The group performers come from the dance academy and are mostly young women from the Indian diaspora. The solo dancer, K.P. Yeshoda, as well as the musicians, come from India but traveled to California to join us in the studio. Kalanjali’s directors are the primary interview subjects: K.P. Kunhiraman (now deceased), a master of both bharatanatyam and kathakali, along with his wife, Katherine Kunhiraman, who has specialized in bharatanatyam. Both trained in the Kalakshetra Academy in Chennai.
