dancer classical dancer Mohiniyattam performer
Her mother Sreedevi Rajan is a noted Mohiniyattam Guru and Smitha"s teacher. Her father was the late T R Rajappan. Blessed with the perfect ambiance of dance and music, for young Smitha, learning dance was something that was as natural as learning to speak in her mother tongue.
From then Guru Kala Vijayan started training her in Bharatanatyam and Smitha did her Arangetram in Bharatanatyam at the age of 4. Her mother, Guru Sreedevi Rajan, taught Smitha her first lessons in Mohiniyattam and Smitha performed her Arangetram in Mohiniyattam at the age of 6. She later mastered in Mohiniyattam from her legendary grand mother.
Her grand father, Guru Kalamandalam Krishnan Nair, taught her Kathakali and fine-tuned her Mukhajabhinaya (facial expressions).
Smitha has also undergone training in Classical Carnatic Music under Professor Kalyanasundaram. She taught at the parent institution Kerala Kalalayam from 1983 at the age of 14 which she continued till 1990.
She was the leading performer of Kerala Kalalayam from 1979 to 1992. Today, Smitha lives in Saint Louis, Missouri, along with her family and is running the institution Nrithyakshetra “Temple of Dance” as a branch of the institution Guru Sreedevi Rajan had started at Kochi, in association with the parent institution Kerala Kalalayam.
