Today we’d like to introduce you to Lavanya Rajagopalan.
Hi Lavanya, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Growing up in India, dance was a passion I discovered at age 5, when I watched a TV series on Bharatanatyam (an Indian classical dance form from South India), presented by the legendary dancer Prof. Sudharani Raghupathy. I began training with her at age 9, and performed in my solo dance debut in 1992. Throughout school and college, and graduate school in India, I continued to train with my Guru, teach under her, and perform both as a soloist and in Company productions.
I came to the United States as a graduate student in 2001, to pursue an academic research career in biosciences. I loved being in the lab, but I also keenly felt the absence of dance, which had always been a constant in my life. At the request of a few colleagues, I began teaching their children Bharatanatyam, and that is how Silambam Houston began, in 2002, with four students in an apartment clubhouse.
Through grad school, postdoctoral training, marriage, two children, and a faculty position at UTMB, dance remained a constant in my journey. I never advertised, but somehow, I kept gaining students, and in 2007, I incorporated Silambam Houston as a nonprofit organization. The organization continued to grow – at one point, I was juggling a full-time federally funded research program, freelancing as a science writer, teaching some 50 students, and being a mom to two toddlers! Something had to give, and I chose in 2013 to step back from research, and continue on with my first love, dance – one of the best decisions I have ever made, even though it was nerve-racking at the time!
Since then, Silambam has grown from strength to strength, and I have never looked back. Today, we are Houston’s premier Indian classical arts organization, offering classes in four Indian classical dance forms, Indian classical music (vocal, instrumental and percussion). Our dance company is well known in Houston for original, thoughtful productions, which we present at the Miller Outdoor Theater each year, in addition to many other venues across the Greater Houston area. We have a robust outreach wing, with performances, workshops and residencies in K-12 schools, libraries, museums and community centers across the area. We present visiting artists through our ArtStream concert series and our YUVA Emerging Artist showcase. And, we inaugurated our own studio and theater space, the Silambam Houston Cultural Arts Center, in 2021 – the first fully equipped performance space primarily dedicated to Indian classical art forms in Texas.
I am so grateful to be here, in the most diverse city in the country, doing what I love most, every single day.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As with any journey, mine has had its ups and downs.
Leaving an established career to focus on an arts nonprofit was definitely a hard decision to make – but nine years later, I am so glad I did, and it has paid off in so many ways, tangible and intangible. I had more time to spend with my kiddos when they were tiny, and I’ve managed to keep in touch with science through freelance science writing. In addition, I was able to volunteer extensively at our elementary school – something I really wanted to do, to educate myself on this new school system that I had never been in. And out of this volunteerism arose a STEM Club that I started with some other parents in 2016 – which later was the seed for our hugely successful ‘Dancing Into STEM’ educational video series.
As an immigrant, a woman, and a person of color, I have dealt with my share of passive-aggressive and micro-aggressive attitudes from various folks and entities, but I am by nature a positive problem-solver, and these were, to me, just minor annoyances to deal with, rather than major issues that might erode my confidence. Looking back, I can see how some of these incidents could have been of much larger significance than I allowed them – and how they could have derailed my confidence and progress. Fortunately, my instinct is to push past problems and look for the solution, the way forward, and that has kept me from faltering!
In 2017, as Silambam was growing exponentially, we launched a capital campaign to build our own space, and finally, in February 2020, we broke ground on our new building. Less than a month later, COVID hit. I watched the world go into lockdown and discover virtual meeting spaces, while we were sinking hundreds of thousands of dollars into building a physical space. This was an agonizing time, in so many ways – I was re-engineering lesson plans and delivery methods to cater to our students’ artistic education as well as social/emotional needs, working to make sure our staff never felt the pinch of the pandemic in their paychecks, researching relief funding ad nauseam, reimagining Company productions and outreach programs in virtual formats, and so much more, all with a constant niggling doubt in the back of my mind as to the wisdom of our building project. Now, I am so glad we persisted – our studio and theater is a community gathering space, a place that encourages artists and arts students to meet and learn and practice and collaborate and experiment and perform. So much positivity and so many unexpected benefits have come from our facility, and I am so excited for what it will bring in the future.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My training is in the Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam, and in Indian classical Carnatic music. I teach, choreograph, and perform Bharatanatyam, and have taught hundreds of students over the last 30 years. I am the Founder and Executive Artistic Director of Silambam Houston, which is Houston’s premiere Indian classical arts nonprofit, with comprehensive programming in several different Indian classical art forms, spanning arts education, outreach, performance and presentation.
If there is something I am truly proud of, it is my desire to reach out to, work with, and elevate other artists. I absolutely love to collaborate, and I believe there is space in the arts for everyone. I think art is richer for the multitude of voices in it, and I firmly believe that you don’t need to stand alone to stand out. My entire art career is built on this premise, and I try to live it every day and with every decision I make.
I have earned some degree of fame and accolades along the way, but the motivation has never been that. It has always been furthering the art, creating opportunities for artists, and molding tomorrow’s artists. And I hope I never lose sight of these guiding principles – they have stood me in good stead so far!
What are your plans for the future?
After the breakneck growth and expansion of the last several years and the uncertainty and upheaval of the pandemic – I am certainly looking forward to a nice quiet few years ahead! How likely that is, is anyone’s guess. I’m always saying “after this project, things will quiet down”, but they never do!
No big changes are planned, but I am sure some will find me. For now, I plan to focus on strengthening the core of Silambam, putting in place strong institutional foundations (and strengthening existing ones), so that my work can be taken on by future generations of arts leaders.
Contact Info:
- Email: lavanya@silambamhouston.org
- Website: www.silambamhouston.org
- Instagram: lavanya.rajagopalan | silambamhouston
- Facebook: lavanya.rajagopalan | silambamhouston
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYhTmjxPUHZJNOGN38qn5JA
Image Credits
Amitava Sarkar (Personal photo, and first 4 pictures in Additional Photos)
Elevate Development (Facility photos)
Asia Society Texas Center (Last photo)
