Deepa Natarajan (nee Vishwanathan) started learning Bharatanatyam from Guru Rajee in 1977, when she was 4 years old. She performed her arangetram when she was 13 and won the best dancer award from her school, The South Indian Education Society's High School. In later years, she learnt Nattuvangam and Tala Shastra from Guru Rajee.

Deepa has taken active part in school and college competitions, winning laurels for herself and credits to her gurus. She has participated in several dance dramas of Nritya Geethanjali, at NCPA, Ravindra Natya Mandir, Nehru Centre, Mulund Fine Arts and given several solo performances. She has always balanced her studies and her art with equal importance. After completing her undergraduation in Commerce, she completed her MBA from California State University. She has given several performances in the U.S. and conducted dance classes in South Carolina and Phoenix. She won an award in the International Dance Festival in Florence, South Carolina.

She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1996 and has settled there with her husband and two daughters, Puja and Anjali. Puja is four years old, learns dance from her mother and performs regularly at social functions. Deepa plans to continue to teach and practice the fine art of Bharatanatyam, learning more from Guruji during her visits to India and bringing her daughters to Guruji too, for further training.

deepnat@hotmail.com