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CREATIVITY

Why I dance By Rajam Ramamurthy, MD Why do you like dance? That is a
more difficult question to answer than
Dr. Rajam Ramamurthy of the Arathi School of Indian Dance performs in August 1998 at the why you like to entertain with dance. I
San Antonio Folklife Festival. Photo courtesy University of Texas at San Antonio Institute of have to dance. My parents and grand-
Texan Cultures parents used to say that I was dancing
at age 2. I do remember dancing as a 4-
year-old every night when my mom’s
six brothers and two sisters gathered
after dinner in her parents’ home in
Kollam (Quilon) Kerala when we went
for long vacations.

In my family there has never been a
dancer, trained or natural. Also at the
time I was growing up, the most popular
dance form in south India,
“Bharathanatyam,” was taboo for us
young girls as it was denigrated and sti-
fled during the British occupation of
India and was practiced mostly by the
community of courtesans. However, by
the time I was in school, the art had been

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