Tejas Dance students Shrujana Kumar and Mahi Devappa perform at Smith Library in Wylie  Thursday, March 14. Jeremy Hallock/C&S Media

Parents and children showed up at the Smith Public Library last week to watch and learn about classical Indian dance. 

“Bharatanatyam Dance Special” was a special Spring Break program hosted by the library for area youth in its multi-purpose room Thursday, March 14. Featured were Tejas Dance, a performance art group from Plano founded in 2014. The group focuses on Bharatanatyam, which originated in southern India and was first documented a few thousand years ago. 

“It’s heavily inspired by the architecture of the temples and poses of sculptures on the walls of the temples,” Tejas Dance Artistic Director Chintan Patel said. “It is an art form that is passed from generation to generation so that is why we feel that the education part is so important.”

Along with Patel and the group’s founder, Bhuvana Venkatraman, the performance at the library included teenage Tejas Dance students Mahi Devappa, Shrujana Kuma and Siri Pulukuru.

To read the full story and support your local community newspaper, subscribe to the Murphy Monitor today!