Guru - Arya’s Pradarshana

Visalini Sundaram is a unique combination of a keen dancer and musician from the diaspora. Her Bharatanatyam training began in 1996 at the age of 5 under the tutelage of Guru Ramya Harishankar. Since her arangetram in 2014, she has performed in the US and India, and currently performs solo and with ADC. She is also the primary dance teacher at ADC.

She was initiated into Carnatic music by Guru Padma Kutty at the age of 5 and has had the privilege of learning music with Sri Palai Ramachandran. Throughout her teens, her maternal grandfather, the late Sri Palakkad Seshamani Iyer (disciple of the legendary G.N. Balasubramaniam) furthered her understanding of the art form. She hails from a family of musicians and dancers, and her maternal great-grandfather is the late Sri Palakkad Rama Bhagavatar. Visalini was placed first at the Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana Music Competition in 2007 and has been teaching Carnatic music in Southern California for the last 17 years. In 2022, she has received the ACTA Master/ Apprenticeship grant to work on a program combining both her talents.

Ramya Harishankar, artistic director of the Arpana Dance Company (ADC), a premier school/company of Bharata Natyam in California celebrated its 40 anniversary in 2022.

Named ‘legacy artist’ by the California Arts Council with an Individual Artist Fellowship (2023). A ‘Distinguished citizen’/Wall of recognition honoree (2022) of the city of Irvine, she is also the recipient of the Kala Seva Bharathi (India 2012) and the Helene Modjeska Cultural Legacy award (Arts Orange County 2007).

Recipient of several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the California Arts Council (CAC) and Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA), Harishankar is a 2-time NEA’s Choreographic Fellow. Her solo career has taken her all over the world, performing extensively in India, Asia, Europe, Australia, and N. America. Her forte is abhinaya/interpretive dance, and she regularly conducts workshops/master classes both online and live in N. America, Europe, UK, Australia, and India. Her short ‘dance’ films – Bhumika on climate change, Aasha…until we meet again, a tribute to 9/11 and Returning to a lost Tradition have been featured in and received awards at numerous film festivals. Ramya co-founded a nonprofit in 1989 to bring Indian classical dance to SoCal which morphed into the Ektaa Center in 2004 serving the greater community and was recently inducted into Irvine’s “Wall of Honorees”. As an artist on Segerstrom Performing Arts Center’s Arts Teach roster, Harishankar has been sharing her art with school children across S. California since 1990. Arpana Dance Company has had the honor of performing in the US, Japan, Europe, and India. Named a LA Milestone Dance Company by the Dance Resource Center of Los Angeles, the Arpana Dance Company is a recipient of grants from the NEA, CAC, and ACTA. Besides participating in festivals and events across S. California, in the last 3 decades, the Company has presented 19 full-length productions raising over $150000 for charities worldwide. As perhaps the first artiste of Indian origin in the area, her contributions have been recognized locally, nationally, and internationally and added color and depth to the cultural landscape of SoCal.