Utthara Unni of South India is a famous dancer, actor, singer and film maker famous for her style of storytelling and her grace in Bharatanatyam. Utthara was born to a Bharatanatayam dancer and her mother was actively involved in dancing and acting during her childhood.An introverted child by nature, Utthara was very shy of speaking as a child, but dance brought the best out of her. Having a family member in the field of dance, she never really considered taking dance seriously and got complacent. Dance only came back to her when she moved to Chennai at the age of 16 or 17 to be a part of the film industry when she got an opportunity to learn dancing more professionally.
Under the guidance of her beloved teacher – Dr Padma Subramanium, she started taking dance seriously at the age of 18, performing at events and slowly grew her inclination towards this dance form. Eventually, she ended up taking up a course in Fine Arts and majored and mastered in Bharatanatyam as her subject.
Meanwhile, while trying to make it in the film industry, she decided to make a short film starring her mother, which eventually won her many accolades. Gradually, she started getting advertisements to act it, while she got to perform on stage in places like Chidambaram which is considered as the most auspicious place for dancers.
She got her first breakthrough in dance for a film which was choreographed by the veteran and a very senior dancer Raghuram, who has choreographed the likes of legendary actor-dancers like Kamal Hassan. The song was the portrayal of two sides of Lord Shiva.
Utthara considers her parents as her biggest guidance and her most honest critiques. The introverted Utthara is still afraid of her mother’s criticism of her dance but also understands that her learning in this art form will never stop.
Utthara, now engaged, never imagined of finding her better half through arranged marriages. In all intention to leave the meeting set up by her parents inside of five minutes, Utthara ended up bonding with her better half more than she could ever imagine.
Confused until the age of 18 and ultimately deciding to choose dance as a career, Utthara feels that dance always uplifted the shy girl inside of her. She believed that she could emote better through her performances than she could do in her personal life.
Now a teacher, Utthara strongly believes that learning in life never stops. It is important to be open to learning at any stage in life. She sees her mother and her dance teacher learning relentlessly at such a developed age, to just sharpen their dancing skills. Utthara teaches young kids Bharatanatyam through online platforms to keep the dance form alive.
Having a fanbase of over 80 thousand followers on Instagram, Utthara once thought that a platform like Instagram would be a modern platform for an art form like Bharatanatyam dance. She was proved wrong in the course of time when her fan base kept growing and her dance videos kept reaching to newer audiences.
Utthara shares her biggest learning in life is to never stop learning, and always take the opportunities that come your way by going with the flow. Dance happened to her by instance, and eventually filmmaking and acting all fell into place for Utthara. She leaves us with saying that dance became a form of Yoga for Utthara because it made her gain concentration of working on her posture and finding her way to emote through dancing.
