Shalu Menon

Changanassery, Kerala, India

Shalu Menon, the grand daughter of late Shri. Thripunithura Aravindaksha Menon who was a Famous dancer of Kerala. He was the one who introduced “Ballet” (Dance Drama) in Kerala. Shri.Aravindaksha Menon established a dance troupe called Jayakerala Nritha Kalalayam at Changanacherry in 1959. Shalu Menon had her primary dance steps at the age of six from her grand father and had her "Arangettam"at the age of nine. She won many prizes at her school level competitions. She was the winner in School level competitions from 1994 to 2000. At the young age she acted in dance dramas directed by her grand father. She got much encouragement from her family, especially her grand mother Smt. Sumathy Menon who is a Mridangam exponent in nurturing her career. Shalu was fortunate to have her initial training in Dance under reverred gurus especially Dr. Padma Subramaniam and Chithra Visheswaran. She is well versed in kuchipudi, Mohiniyattam and Kathakali. She has acted in many Malayalam Films, TV serials and Devotional Albums. At present she is one of the leading performer in the country and abroad and proved her ability in acting also. She also won number of awards including Asian Award and Drishya Award for the best Actress. She is also a grade artist of Dooradarsan Kendra. She is doing a lot of charitable programs in association with different orphanages and schools and also she is giving feeless teaching for financially poor students Shalu has seven schools named as "Jayakerala School of Performing Arts" (recognized distance study centre of Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy) for the training of Classical Dance and other art forms in central travancore, and there by facilitate the students for establishing career in the respective areas. She is doing higher studies in Bharathidarsan University, Trichy and earlier she has done her studies in Classical dance in Shastra University,Tanjore