Introducing kids To Our Culture & Tradition Through Bharatanatyam

Poornima Rajini – Founder Director, NIDAM (National Institute of Dance, Art & Music)

Recipient of the award- ‘Fellowship for outstanding Young Artiste’ from the ‘Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government of India’- Poornima Rajini is the Founder Director of ‘NIDAM (National Institute of Dance, Art & Music)’. She immensely believes that exposing children to Performing Arts at an early age integrates their physical, cognitive, social & emotional domains, and fosters their overall development. She shares all this can be achieved through yoga, mudras, Sanskrit shlokas, basic body postures of Bharatanatyam, Carnatic vocal, basic rhythm patterns and other associated art forms. She has indigenously developed an innovative program called PAIP (Performing Arts Initiation Program) exclusively providing a platform for creative learning & development of children through the medium of Indian Performing Arts. Their institute has partnered with several prominent preschool chains and has been proudly conducting this program for last 6 years.

They are all set to take this program forward to the underprivileged kids across the slums of Bangalore and Government-run Anganwadi centers free of cost through their self-funded program with absolutely no financial support from any agencies or organisations.

Being a professional Bharatanatyam trainer, Poornima shares “Every time a parent requested an admission to Bharatanatyam for their preschooler kid, I had to send them back as the bones of children are still vulnerable below 6 years of age and the basic body posture of any Indian Classical Dance is quite demanding.” This was the moment when she decided to compile a comprehensive age-appropriate yet exciting syllabus of Indian Performing Arts.

She deeply follows the principle – “Never say Never” and gets deeply inspired by anyone who shares the same mind-set. Poornima recalls the time when she had to utilize the limited resources she had during her early years. She shares how she learnt to stand and speak up for herself from her early days. Her passion for dance never came in her way of excelling in Academics and she still manages her ‘work- life’ balance efficiently. She is a person who always took the decisions she felt were right and required. She introduced a concept hitherto unexplored which she always believed had a huge potential and adopted innovative methods of teaching instead of regular ones.

She discloses how every setback in her life pushed her even harder to revisit and work upon it only to bounce back with a much better approach.

She shares her concern about the lack of experienced trainers during the time several parents wished to send their kids to learn something that introduce them to our culture and traditions. She felt the need of the hour and contributed in this direction by introducing a structured syllabus based learning to assess the innate talent and potential of children through appropriate parameters, and by having one-on-one counseling sessions with the parents which helped in eliminating the trial & error method.

The winner of ‘Bangalore city Icon’ award from ‘Radio city – FM channel’,   Poornima Rajini has the ability to find an opportunity beyond closed doors. She never judges any opportunity as small or big, and never approaches anything with a pre-set objective. Adoring dance for 30 years, she has bagged several awards such as ‘Natya Kusumanjali Award’ from ‘Natya Kusumanjali Cultural Forum’, ‘Social Leader of the year – 5th edition’ by ‘Transformance’ and ‘Pride of Nation Pratibha Sanman Award’ from ‘MVLA trust’.