M. Subhashini Vijay Santhanam
Subhashini is the founder and artistic director of FWA and FWN. She began learning dance at the age of nine at Prasannalya (Chennai, India). She performed her first full length solo recital of two and a half hours at the age of twelve on Jan 16, 1988 at Adyar Cultural Academy in Gandhinagar, Chennai. Guru Shri Adyar Lakshman was the chief guest. This short cut to arangetram was only and only because of the kindest glance of grace of her Guru Gnanadeepam Aunty.
It was uncommon those days for Aunty to teach class and a chance visit to observe the students made her eyes fall on Subhashini and she put her up for the Arangetram journey along with a fellow student Yalini Ratnajothi who was way more senior, partly for saving costs and partly because the school was winding up as their family was migrating to the UK.
This kind of sensitivity towards a middle class kid was quite uncommon among Gurus and Aunty out of the goodness of her heart, took on the task of training Subhashini for arangetram. Smt Lekha Sasi took on Varnam training and Subhashini’s dance technique completely changed for the better because of Lekha teacher’s incredible attention to detail and super high standards.
How one perceives dance before and after Arangetram is completely different. It is this experience that Subhashini hopes to share with lots of students so that they have a chance to feel for this Supreme Art.
Subhashini ‘s own parents were completely non interfering in her dance studies except for providing food and finances. They never asked her what she learnt, never mentioned home practice and surprisingly neither did any of Subhashini’s teachers. This too has carried over to From Within. We only practice before a show.
Subhashini’s family was and is still surprised just as anyone else who has been in contact with her thru her formative years that Subhashini’s life journey has such a big portion of dance in it.
There has been no family history, no desire, no yearning to give closure to unfulfilled dreams of mom or grandmom, no aspiration for dressing up and certainly no desire for a chance on stage, no desire for praise, no ambition, no force or no agenda thru dance. It is just a natural calling and a state of being connected without which life is a dark abyss.
Subhashini continued her advanced training in Bharatanatyam till 1994 under various well-established teachers of Kalakshetra. Her teachers include Gnanadeepam Aunty who taught at Prasannalaya, Smt Bhavani, Smt Krishna, Smt Lekha Sasi, Smt Shobana Swamy and Smt Jyolsana Menon in Chennai. For super brief periods of time, Subhashini was a student of Smt Uma Sundaram and Smt Dharini of Abhinayasudha.
In 1995, she moved to Delhi and trained briefly under Smt. Nandini Nagaraj. Nandini Akka shifted back to Chennai. Upon request from the parents of the students of Nandini Akka, Subhashini taught dance to the students in Delhi and the school quickly grew to about fifty students. It was a very beautiful dance class and the girls were doing really well but Subhashini had to leave for Chennai.
The life changing moment in Delhi came when she went to Ms. Leela Samson to audition for the Gandharv Mahavidhyalaya MA course and Leela akka remarked that she should do her own work and show it to her from time to time. This gave Subhashini some confidence about her own dance. Before leaving Delhi, Subhashini was also selected to be part of Ananda Shankar And Tanushree Shankar’s troupe. But she had to move to Chennai for family reasons.
Upon moving back to Chennai in about 1998, Subhashini discovered and stayed with Tapasya Kala Sampradaya. Her teachers included Smt. Indhu Varma, Dr. Srividya Natarajan and Shri K P Chandrashekar.
Tapasya was truly a thought provoking and spirit nourishing experience for Subhashini. This may just have been the time when Subhashini was herself capable of receiving her teacher’s gifts differently because of her own mental maturity. The experience of culling scripts from texts and setting it to music and then to dance became a normal activity. There was no formal structure and ‘what did you learn today’ attitude but what did we do together for dance today ?
The hard work, sweat, masters unhurried singing, sound of the rhythm stick, thatched roof cottage, the burning of lamps before the deities lined up against the wall, hot tea and biscuits were such blissful moments etched in memory that Subhashini longs to create the same for others.
Subhashini trained briefly in Kathak with Smt Priti Ghosh in Chennai in 2000.
She moved to the United States in 2000, and of course immediately felt incomplete without dance. In 2003 she received the Washington State Apprenticeship to expand her dance repertoire under Dr. Smt Jayanthi Raman.
In Feb 2003, she set up From Within in Seattle. The uniform colors were exactly the ones she herself wore as a child to Prasannalaya when she started dancing.
Why did Subhashini not call the dance class Prasannalaya or Tapasya ? Please do ask her when you see her. ;)! Briefly, out of a mark of respect for what they each uniquely stood for.
Subhashini has worked very hard and braved countless odds to keep the dance and most importantly the spirit of the dance alive. She currently teaches advanced dance classes at the FWA dance school. She has been supremely blessed to be surrounded by loving families and incredible students who have understood and imbibed much more than the dance at From Within. Most of them are teachers and torch bearers of From Within.
We hope to include others into our dance family too and dance apart, meeting of minds and a sense of our overall philosophy is paramount to sustaining this unique work and taking it to the future. This is Subhashini’s dream. Subhashini is a current Kathak student of Shri Murali Mohan Kalvakalva. She has a long long way to go and simply enjoys the process of working with her Master.