Recent activities

It's been a long break. We have stayed busy over the last few months although we haven't been updating the blog.

Here is an update of all our activities over the last few months.

Rama Navami celebrations in April 2009

Earlier this month, NZIFS organised to celebrate Rama Navami at the Kurunchi Kumaran Temple in Newlands.

On this ocassion, Nadalaya students, tutored by Jaishri Suresh, performed the entire Rama Charitha Geetham. This ragamalika compostion by Papanasam Sivam in Tamil, comprises more than 20 stanzas outlining the story of Ramayana, right from Rama’s birth to his coronation as the King of Ayodhya.

There were traditional prasadam offerings after the puja for Lord Rama was performed at the temple.

Many thanks to Hema and Sourirajan for the loan of their large Rama photograph for the occasion.

Thyaraja Aradhana in February 2009

In February, after most of the out of towners had returned from trips overseas, we held the Thyagaraj Aradhana at the Newlands temple again.

Apart from rendering the pancharatna krithis, there were other solo Thyagaraja kritihis performed on the occasion.

The aradhana ended with a puja to Saint Thyagaraja.

Thanks are due to Lalitha Balajee for their loan of the Thyagayya painting.

WCC Diwali event in October 2008

Our members were performing both on Stage 1 and 2 at the Diwali celebrations on Labour weekend in October last year.

On stage 1, there performed a Malayalam dance called Oppanna.

On stage 2, other members did a vocal performance of Carnatic songs and then a violin solo.