Today’s women entrepreneurs are conquering the world fearlessly. Filled with brilliance, they are proceeding with unbridled enthusiasm to transform the world around them. One of these inspiring women is Geetha Ganesan, whose story of success sets an example for aspiring women leaders. Geetha Ganesan is the Founder Director of UttaraaCenter For Performing Arts (UCPA), an institution that imparts training to students who intend to learn the Southern Indian Classical dance form, Bharatanatyam, in its purest art form. The institution was set up in 1999 with a vision to institutionalize Bharatanatyam. In 2017, UCPA diversified into embracing the tenet for an overall constituent development apart from Bharatanatyam which included – Classical & light music, theme based workshops, lecture demonstrations, education & corporate shows in the field of performing arts. Added to this diversity, the institution also graciously embraced the tenet of a holistic constituent development with the three 3 C’s – Connect Cultivate and Collaborate.
C – Connect the constituents
C – Cultivate passion
C – Collaborate with Performing Arts
Since its inception, UCPA has groomed close to 700+ students in thiswonderful art form, extended 1000+ stage shows and has won 50+ noteworthy titles to itscredit. With 200+ years of collective leadership wisdom, UCPA today, is one of the most renowned and established institution of repute, in performing arts.
With an ultimate objective of leading a qualitative lifestyle through performing arts through a profound vision, innovation and professionalism, UCPA has grown leaps and bounds over a span of 23 years. It strongly believes in the tenet of a holistic development of both the student and parent community, and spearheads a unique growth strategy, with a blend of both ‘for profit’ and ‘value added’ approaches.
Striking a Chord with Innovation
UCPA has introduced several new programs as partof its functioning, which include but are not limited to – introduction to other danceforms by exponents across the country, knowledge dissemination activities in varied areas and Industry Connect programs with highly distinguished andexperienced speakers addressing the UCPAians (Members of UCPA), as part of their quarterly development series.
In addition, UCPA is designing an Integrated Performing Arts platform named ‘ANTARANG’ to layer performing arts on the academicpedagogy for the Higher Education fraternity. Antarang helps a set of subscribed batch of individuals to lead a qualitative lifestyle through carefully crafted courseware by UCPA. This is a proprietary platform of UCPA and can be made commercially available on demand.
The Lightening Guide Behind the Institution
One of the versatile Bharatanatyamexponents with an experience of over 40 years as a performing artist and 25 years as a ‘Naatyacharya’ (Dance instructor), has earned a name for her inimitable creativity,choreography and novelty in presentations. Geetha Ganesan, being a practitioner of Bharatanatyam herself, constantly works towards creating a lineage for the younger generationin the decades to arrive. She along with her senior second-in-command artists constantly strive to connect with their constituents, cultivate the passion within them andhelp them to collaborate with performing arts.
Her success story has a list of accomplishments that exhibit her domain creativity, expertise and her zest to train and create awareness. As a performer, teacher, choreographer, vocalist, and Nattuvanar, she has been highly acclaimed as a unique multi-talented personality in the field of performing arts. Besides, she has personally authored a book – ‘BASICS OFBHARATANATYAM’ – printed by UTTARAA PUBLICATIONS in April 2004, which helps students appear for basic level examinations with theoretical and practical knowledge in Bharatanatyam.
Talking about what motivated her to establish UCPA, Geetha stated – “Indian Classical Dances have sustained through centuriesproving to be one of the most accepted forms for physical training, emotional outlet, mental satisfaction and overall rejuvenation, inspired UCPA to come upwith an unparalleled desire to impart training in performing arts along with theirbest practices to all the age groups who aspire to embrace performing arts asone of the integral parts of their lives. Sustaining passion has been a challenge across industries and people loveto explore newer avenues. Our ultimateobjective is to sustain the passion and convertthe passion into a purpose, through performing arts.”
Making an influential mark with a Dynamic Team
UCPA strongly believes in the holistic development of students thereby preparingeach student to be ‘industry ready’ and above all, a good citizen of the nation.
Akin to a typical Gurukul culture, the students are trained in different areas likemanaging emotions, stress, fitness, building self-confidence, meditation and handling failures through performing arts, in addition toimparting training in Bharatanatyam (our flagship offering).
Additionally, the inclusion of light musical shows has originated a new spectrumof perspectives and opportunities within UCPA. Students at UCPA are getting a real-time experience of this diversity within performing arts, thus enhancing and diversifying their skills as artists. Above all, UCPA conducts a lot of charity shows in holy shrines and believes in giving back both the talentand entertainment to such communities.
“We believe in creating a legacy which can only happen with a dynamic team of hustlers and trusted advocates of our vision and strategy. We work toextend equal opportunities to all our members regardless of their socialstatus, creed, caste and religion. We are a secular institution with a team of highperformers who wouldn’t settle for the next best alternate – be it on performance, customer deliveries or back-end administration”, the leading lady further apprised.
Dealing with anunprecedentedcrisis
The pandemic has had a huge impact on the performing arts industry: the biggest challenge being lack of onsite presence/interactions which is extremely important from a perspective of a personalized audience connect.
UCPA went ahead embracing technology and using the same to overcome the challenges with minimal negotiations. The system of training was remodelled and restructured to suit the online demand. Live performances went online as well. UCPA left no stone unturnedto provide for continued learning and performing experience, even in thetoughest of times. The pandemic crisis, on the contrary, played a key role inpaving way for exploring new avenues and embracing technology as a non-negotiable placeholder in the performing arts ecosystem.
UCPA’s Accomplishments& Future Roadmap
UCPA has proudly hosted some of the most popular sponsored music shows like: ‘Gaata Rahe MeraDil’, ‘ZindagiEk Safar Hain Suhana’ and ‘Jashn’ which were loved, applauded and much appreciated by the audience, both from India and overseas. Introduction of light musical shows gave an exponential edge to UCPA and placed the institution as a ‘North Star’ in the performing arts fraternity. While in the dance segment, the institution has been termed as the ‘Kalakshetra’ of Hyderabad by the renowned musician Shri NookalaChinnaSathyanarayana. The students of UCPA are proud recipients of the CCRT (Centre for Cultural Resources and Training) and HRD scholarships in addition to their recognitions at other National levels.
UCPA has already created a unique foothold in the industry. Now, it is planning for a formal launch of its Integrated Performing Arts platform withinthe Education and Corporate fraternity and become a market leader in contributing towards a holistic constituentdevelopment through performing arts.
