Promoting Heritage Through Dance

Muvva Nritya Raaga Nigamam; a dance institute started by renowned Kuchipudi dancer Dr Hima Bindu Kanoj; is doning a wonderful job at promoting Indian Temples and Heritage through their dance videos and photoshoots. The institute was recently conferred with “Indian Excellence Award” for this initiative.

Muvva was started twenty years back to train interested learners in classical dance Kuchipudi. Although it was started as a training school, Hima and her eight members team does various kinds of projects that involve addressing social and environmental issues, temple research, conducting dance festivals, workshops and many more activities.

Through the activities of Muvva, they have connected with many artists and they continuously work to create platforms and stages; both offline and online; wherein the artists can showcase their work and talents through dance.

Dr Hima Bindu Kanoj has done an extensive research in the dance related sculptures of Kakatiya and Vijaynagara temples. And she has received a PhD for this research.

Since childhood, Hima was fascinated by temples. More than going to a park or a play area, she used to love accompanying her mother to the temple. The whole atmosphere of being in a temple always was special to her.

After learning dance, she used to try observing the sculptures in the temple and see whether she could recognise any dance movement in them; whenever she visited an ancient temple. This further inspired her to learn and study more about them in future.

After pursuing Masters in Dance, when she got an opportunity to do a PhD in dance, she immediately decided that her research topic would be about temples and dance. She studied in detail about the dance sculptures , their iconography and the sublime connection of dance and sculpture.

Indian classical dance has always a connection with the temples. Dancing was a part of the temple activity in olden days and as both dance and sculpture are visual mediums of art, they enhance each other with thier beauty.

The preference to shoot Muvva dance videos in ancient temples is that it increases awareness among people that a temple has more than what is seen, and dance is also more than what is portrayed. Hima says that she would love to see people going more to the temples and know about them, as there is a lot of beauty hidden there. It increases cultural tourism and many temples which are in a bad state can be renovated too.

There are many temples which require attention and their small desire is that if these temples are known more to the outside world, then the more chances are there that they are looked after. Hence the group tries in their best way that they shoot in lesser known temples and showcase their beauty.

By shooting their videos in temples, they also try to teach their students about the importance of knowing our culture, arts, history and heritage.

The group has done photo and video shoots at Pacchala Someswara temple, Nalgonda district.; Krishna temple, Kondamadugu, Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district and Lalitambika temple, Gollapalli, Mahaboonnagar district. They have also performed at various temple festivals including Tanjavur Brihadeeswara temple, Chidambaram Nataraja temple, Tirumala temple, Tiruchanoor temple, Srikalahasti temple, Kanipakam temple, Srisailam temple, Basara Gnana Saraswathi temple, Vemulawada Shiva temple, Birla Mandir Hyderabad, Naina Devi temple, Nainital. For research papers, they have visited around thirty to forty temples all over Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh.

Muvva Nritya Raaga Nigamam; as a group of temples and dance enthusiasts; are always open for collaborations and research work related to temples.

Team Indian.Temples feels very fortunate to be connected with this group of amazing individuals and temple lovers.