The Bharatanatyam ‘Arangetram’ of Ellen Winkler was held at ADA Rangamandira recently. Ellen has been learning Bharatanatyam under the tutelage of Rajyashree Ramesh, a critically acclaimed dancer, teacher and choreographer who lives in Germany, for nine years. Besides her love for Bharatanatyam she is working as a physiotherapist and her interest is in the relationship between dance and healing.

Rajyashree Ramesh’s Academy has brought forth several professional dancers of European origin. In Germany she has been instrumental in developing a special training method, which includes traditional intensive dance technique training as well as modern movement analysis, thus enabling an increasing number of non-Indian aspirants to complete training under her. Dr Sunil Kothari, leading dance historian, scholar, author and critic of Indian classical dances was the guest of honour.