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PAPER: 3

Detail Study Of Bharatanatyam, Devadasis-Natuvnar, Nritya And

Nritta, Different Bani-s, Present Status, Institutions, Artists

Module 32 Bharatanatyam In Diaspora

Bharatanatyam and the diaspora has happened. Diaspora happens

when a large body of immigrants settles down in an adopted country

and slowly its culture and traditions get established and passed on to

its next generation. Many Indians settled abroad since long but in big

continents like USA, Europe and other smaller parts near east, the

third generation Indians are economically settled and no more

struggling. These societies now take pride in their culture and thus

wish to learn, project, platform traditional arts and teach to their

offspring.

Much more movement is also happening from India worldwide so

lots more people travel now more easily. Earlier only a few privileged

could go, now many do frequently. This has also led to greater

exchange of culture and its practices.

No doubt, it was pioneering foreigners from Europe and USA who

opened our eyes to Indian dances. It was in 1920s great many dance

names like Anna Pavlova, Ruth St Denis, Ted Shawn, La Meri, Louise

Lightfoot came to India and thus made Indian dances popular in their

countries. They created an air, a market/environment as it were,

followed by Indians like Ram Gopal, Uday Shankar, Ananda Shivaram,

Gopinath and others going out to showcase Indian dances.

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Like Isadora Duncan, who preceded her, Ruth St. Denis was a

revolutionary artiste who felt the need to break from the limitations

of ballet. Knowing full well that the western mind could not

assimilate the content of these dances of the East, with their

gestures and movements that have come down through long

generations as symbols of faith and legend, she made no attempt to

reproduce them. Her aim was to give a fair and beautiful translation

that would help American and European dance audiences come

closer to Oriental cultures. In that she proved to be catalyst. Her

many dances with Indian themes like 'Radha / राधा,' 'Incense,' 'Cobra,'

'Nautch Dance' made many come closer to things Indian and Ted

Shawn was drawn to her art and her. The two got

married. Denishawn the dance school and the dance company was

born! Denishawn toured until 1932 during which time they trained

countless dancers. The most memorable tour from Indian dance

history point of view was in 1925 when the company landed in India

at Calcutta.1

In Calcutta, Denishwan performed at the Empire Theatre. Two of her

favorite items Ruth had included in her tour repertoire were 'Nautch

Dance' and 'Dance of The Black and Gold Sari'. The two items proved

to be most smashing not only in Calcutta but wherever the company

performed. In the south, they extended their trip to include

Madurai, where they marveled at the felicity of the celebrated

devadasi Kamalamba. In Madras, on seeing Mahabalipuram, Ted was

inspired to compose the Dance of Siva for which he got made a huge

brass of ring of Shiva's fire made in metal by a Calcutta foundry, at

center of which he stood himself and danced as Shiva Nataraja! Their

tour of India gave them many insights into India and wherever they

went they opened the eyes of Indians to beauty and greatness of

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Indian dances neglected under long colonial rule. 2

On the tenth anniversary of her joining the Marinsky, Anna Pavlova

appeared as the lead dancer in a new ballet La Bayadere. This is

based on the life of a devadasi who is loved by a Hindu priest but she

loves a gallant in the local raja's service. Pavlova’s involvement with

India started from this time. On her very first visit to India in 1922,

the lasting impressions Pavlova carried of her visit was of the Ajanta

frescoes. In London, her staff choreographer Ivan Clustine created a

ballet called Ajanta Frescoes but the effort remained amateurish, for

Clustine had never seen the frescoes nor had any idea of Indian

dancing. In India, Pavlova had occasion to attend a wedding, and

now her attention turned to producing a ballet on this. Commalata

Bannerjee was commissioned to devise the music for the ballet titled

A Hindu Wedding. But Pavlova made a greater contribution than this.

She was advised of a young Indian boy who was in London studying

painting who also dabbled in dance and who might prove of help to

Pavlova in designing the ballet. Thus Anna Pavlova discovered Uday

Shankar as a dancer, for he not only designed but choreographed A

Hindu Wedding. He also choreographed ‘Krishna and Radha’ in which

Pavlova invited him to partner her on stage. Thus, India's greatest

genius in dance was born. 3

In 1929, Pavlova was going to Australia via India and Java. A young

bride Rukmini Devi Arundale with her husband George Arundale was

aboard the ship. Their cabin was opposite Pavlova’s and one thing

led to another and Pavlova’s staff choreographer Cleo Nordi inspired

Rukmini to learn ballet while on the long journey. Later, Rukmini Devi

not only helped reinstate Bharatanatyam, but also set up an

institution Kalakshetra, for its teaching.

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Arriving in India in the late 1940s, Nala Najan immersed himself

whole-heartedly in learning Bharatanatyam. Like all others of his

time, he based himself in Madras and later after his guru

Kattumannar Muthukumara Pillai left Madras for his native place, he

decided to follow him to Chidambaram. Back in New York, Nala

started dancing but several factors made him not succeed. First, men

dancing those days were an oddity, even in New York of the 50s.

Two, opportunities for "Hindu" dances were few. He survived in the

sixties, helping Ted Shawn and Sol Hurok organise tours of visiting

Indian artistes. His official debut took place on February 12, 1960 in

New York City. The famous critic Walter Terry wrote in the New York

Herald Tribune: “Nala Najan, an American youth who ran off to India

to study firsthand the ancient classical dances, made his formal

debut… the auditorium was jammed. The program included cool

classicism of Bharatanatyam....a highly auspicious debut.” Nala Najan

was instrumental in the Seraikella Chhau dancers touring the USA,

with Nala himself providing expert introductions. He was the first

promoter of the form and enlisted Sol Hurok no less, as impresario to

help the form reach many in the USA. His introductions and

commentary on each dance form was very useful because way back

then Indian dances were not well known and clubbed with Oriental

or Hindu dances. It can be said that Nala Najan put India on the

world dance map in USA.4

But for these foreign dancers who came all through the early 20th

century, savored and saved some of our own traditions, we may not

have had a Ram Gopal, discovered by American ethnic dancer La

Meri, or yet another American dancer Ragini Devi who discovered

Gopinath. Australian Louise Lightfoot came and discovered Ananda

Shivaram and many such later examples abound. Writers like Beryl

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de Zoete (Dutch) and Travernier (French) wrote extensively on

dancing in India. In the decade after this, the slow and steady revival

of Indian dance traditions started and the above foreigners deserve

credit for showcasing Indian dances worldwide, thereby creating not

only an interest (and a market) abroad but also open the eyes of

Indians to their own traditions. While Indian dances have reached

out to most corners of the world now, thanks also to Indian diaspora,

the original catalysts were a few pioneering foreigners and

traditional gurus who inspired many Indians to re-look at their own

dance traditions. They played a significant role in shaping the

fortunes of Indian dances.5

Thus, what started in 1920s has come a full circle now as we are

approaching 2020s! Many Indian dance schools teaching

Bharatanatyam have opened in many parts of world and both

Indians and foreigners partake of it. In USA alone, there must be

over 500 schools, coast to coast.

In the passion for re-discovery of our cultural identity during the

Nationalist movement in India, Bharatanatyam like all other dance

forms, received a new thrust, its revival characterised by a sea

change in dancers and art context. The hitherto guarded privacy of a

tradition nurtured within a community was suddenly full of persons

from non-traditional backgrounds practicing the art form, with the

hapless devadasi sinking into oblivion, except for the inimitable

Balasaraswati, an exception even amongst the devadasis. As art

training institutions proliferated and the dance spread, the

Bharatanatyam dancer in a euphoric post- Independent India

acquired the status of a cultural ambassador, the art form and

practitioners becoming unofficial diplomatic symbols as one of the

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best embodiments of Indian culture. An organization like the Indian

Council for Cultural Relations was soon created to function as the

cultural arm of the diplomatic corps.6

It was not long before Bharatanatyam dancers as wives of doctors

and engineers serving abroad, cautiously ventured into starting

Bharatanatyam teaching classes in basements. The dance became for

the diaspora, a means of retaining connection with one’s Indianness

while functioning far from home, and also an expression reinforcing

and asserting one's separate ethnic identity, while remaining part of

a larger multi-cultural society. Not by any means part of mainstream

art, Bharatanatyam nevertheless has acquired over the years a more

visible presence and in countries like the United States, and the U.K.

the diaspora is now confident enough to no longer look to India for

leads and legitimacy. The dancers here now are crying to be

recognized in their own right.7

Two conferences held in the United States at Houston and at Chicago

on ‘Indian Dance in the Diaspora’ (September 1-3) and

‘Bharatanatyam in the Diaspora’ (September 6-9, 2001) respectively,

were proof of the more assertive Indian dance presence. While the

first of these events was mounted by Samskriti, under the guidance

of dancer Rathna Kumar, the Chicago conference was presented by

Natya Dance Theatre run by Hema Rajagopalan, ably assisted by her

daughter and disciple Krithika Rajagopalan, in conjunction with

Columbia College, Chicago. The scene in the States today is a far cry

from the days when a Ragini Devi (mother of late Indrani Rehman)

who nurtured an inner conviction of having been an Indian in her

previous birth, began learning Bharatanatyam from Gauri Amma of

Chennai and Jetti Tayamma of Karnataka. Sukanya the daughter of

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Indrani, one of the panelists in the Chicago conference, recounted

how her grandmother had happened to stumble on the Natya

Shastra in 1928. She even subsequently authored a book on Indian

classical dances. When Ragini Devi returned to her homeland

America, it was to see modern dancer Ruth St. Denis creating,

through her imagination, dance images of an India she had never

visited, though she did travel to this country much later in life. Ragini

Devi, in the attempt to make what she had learned in India

communicate to the western audience at home, even set

Bharatanatyam movements to western music. The western world

was to be soon treated to excellence in Bharatnatyam through

dancers like Ram Gopal, Shanta Rao and later the great

Balasaraswati. In Canada and in the UK, Indian classical dance has

made more headway it would seem with both Kathak and

Bharatanatyam becoming part of the educational curriculum.8

In Europe, France remains number one for learning and teaching

Bharatanatyam followed by UK and others. The French have taken to

Bharatanatyam and Carnatic music like fish to water. For 35 years,

Guru M.K. Saroja went to Paris each year and trained over 300

students, of whom Vidya now heads Mandapa’s Bharatanatyam

section. Dominique Delorme, Shakuntala, Malavika, Amala Devi,

Manochaya are famed performers / teachers in France.

Germany has Arup Ghosh in Munich, Alexandra Romanova, Angelika

Sriram, Katja-Shivani, Margit Kuffemann and Rajyashree Ramesh. In

UK many dancers have settled and continue to teach like Pushkala

Gopal, Usha Raghavan, Geetha Upadhyaya, Anusha Subramanyam,

Chitra Sundaram, Chitralekha Bolar, Geeta Sridar, Deepa Ganesh,

Nina Rajarani, Chamundeeswari Kuppuswamy etc. Institutions like

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Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and Universities like Roehampton teach

Bharatanatyam which is even included in school syllabus. Mavin

Khoo, Mayuri Bonham, Seeta Patel are some prominent dancers of

Bharatanatyam.

The presence of Bharatanatyam dance classes at several major

London Tamil temples signifies a new link between the dance and

religious ritual and religious expression in the contemporary diaspora

setting. It also signifies the increased importance assigned to the

dissemination of dancing within religious practice. Bharatanatyam is

currently being promoted as an important subject for study in three

of the main London Tamil temples. Many community elders, dance

teachers, temple devotees, and religious leaders consider it to be

relevant to religious festivals in several other Tamil temples where

performances by teachers, professionals, and students can be seen.

It is taught at most of the Tamil Saturday and Sunday schools, some

of which have significant links with the LTTE (of Srilanka).9

Toronto saw its first Bharatanatyam School in 1975 with the opening

of Menaka Thakkar’s Nrtyakala. Lata Pada founded Sampradaya in

1990 in Mississauga. Trained in Thanjavur style of Bharatanatyam,

she and her dance company present Bharatanatyam and

contemporary works. Sudha Khandwani opened her Kalanidhi Fine

Arts of Canada in 1992. Her notable contribution to the diaspora is

by way of conferences and international festivals. Hari Krishnan,

artistic director of dance, is known equally for his traditional

Bharatanatyam as well as his contemporary works. Jhanak Khendry’s

Bharatanatyam started in 1955 in Chidambaram and later in

Kattumanarkoil under Guru Muthukumara Pillai, in Hyderabad with

T.K. Narayan. In 1968 he met U.S. Krishna Rao and Chandrabhaga

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Devi of Bangalore in New York City, who gave him the best of the

Pandanallur tradition for the next thirty years. Jhanak Khendry Dance

Company started in 1978 in New York and registered in Canada in

1981. In Montreal, Mamata Niyogi-Nakra, a disciple of U.S. Krishna

Rao and Chandrabhaga Devi, has been teaching the Pandanallur style

she imbibed from her gurus through her institution Kala Bharati that

she founded in 1981. In Vancouver, Canadian dancer Jai Govinda

(real name is Benoit Villeneuve) is carrying on the good work with his

Mandala Arts and Culture. Established in 1994, the academy

specializes in Bharatanatyam and is recognized by Heritage Canada

for its excellence in teaching. Balasaraswati’s disciple Priyamvada

Sankar and her Sankar's School of Bharatanatyam and Vasantha

Krishnan’s Nrithyalaya Foundation are both based in Quebec.

Universities are also proving to be important resource centres and

learning curves, especially with established dancers settled and

teaching there like Anne Marie Gaston in Canada, Lata Pada, Hari

Krishan, Devesh Soneji - all in Canada. In USA, there is east coast with

NYC Tisha School where many like Avanthi Meduri got her doctorate

on Bharatanatyam. Rachel Mattson did her doctorate basing on

Hindu concept of case of Ragini Devi, Indrani Rahman’s mother.

Many more studies are coming out of Columbia, Chicago (Hema

Rajagopalan, Parijata Hombal Verghese) and on the West coast with

Judy Mitoma at UCLA.

Prominent Bharatanatyam schools in the USA to name a few are

Rangoli Foundation for Art & Culture (Malathi Iyengar, CA), Arpana

School of Dance (Ramya Harishankar, CA), Lasya Dance Company

(Vidhya Subramanian, CA), Abhinaya Dance Company (Mythili

Kumar, CA), Natya Dance Theatre (Hema Rajagopalan, IL), Nrityanjali

(Jothi Raghavan, MA), Nritya Sudha's Hindu Temple Rhythms (Sudha

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Chandra Sekhar, MI), Soorya Dance Company (Prasanna Kasthuri,

MO), Nrithyanjali Institute of Dance (Ramya Ramnarayan, NJ), Nritya

Saagaram Dance Academy (Satya Pradeep, NY), Nritya School of

Bharatanatyam (Padmini Chari, TX), Anjali Center for Performing Arts

(Rathna Kumar, TX), Arathi School of Dance (Revathy Satyu, TX),

Arathi School of Dance (Asha Gopal, AZ). Even in Alaska there are

Bharatanatyam teaching schools and this way the Indian diaspora

community stays in touch with its cultural moorings.

Many Indian parents in the US want their children to learn

Bharatanatyam and perform. Many dance teachers are also

grooming their daughters to continue their lineage like Hema

Rajagopalan – Krithika Rajagopalan, Malathi Iyengar - Lakshmi

Iyengar, Viji Prakash - Mythili Prakash, Mythili Kumar - Rasika and

Malavika, Ranee Ramaswamy - Ashwini and Aparna Ramaswamy etc.

The number of Bharatanatyam dancers in the US is in close

competition to the number in India and is increasing because of

many schools coming up in every other locality.

D. Keshava in Basel, Switzerland and TTB (TeatroTascabile di

Bergamo) in Italy are some most prominent institutions of learning

and promoting Bharatanatyam in last 30 years. There are dance

schools in Spain, Kazakhstan (Akmaral Kainazarova), Argentina,

Brazil, New Zealand, Reunion Islands, West Indies, Ukraine (Ganna

Smirnova), China and even Pakistan where dancers like Sheema

Kermani pursue their passion against all odds. Chandrabhanu,

Anandavalli, Padma Balakumar, RevatiIlanko and others champion

the cause of Bharatanatyam in Australia.The ICCR has also started

sending many dance teachers for short periods to many countries

like Poland, Japan, Belgium, Netherlands, Mauritius and China.

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In South Africa those who learnt dance in the 40's, 50's and 60's in

India and who had migrated after marriage to South Africa had

managed to set up modest schools and conduct arangetrams and

performances in their local constituency. When apartheid was

dismantled in 1994, the world exhaled in relief and the Indian

community heaved a sigh of relief. KWA Zulu-Natal Dance Theatre

(Vasugi Singh), Kantharuby Dance Academy (Kantharuby Munsamy),

Natyamani Manasa Bharatanatyam Academy (Manasa Devi

Govender) are well known.

In Singapore, Neila Sathyalingam with her husband and Santha

Bhaskar with her husband established themselves with Apsarasa Arts

and Nrityalaya Aesthetics Society/ Bhaskar's Arts Academy. The

Temple of Fine Arts, Suvarna Fine Arts of Ajit Bhaskaran Dass and

Ramli Ibrahim’s Sutra Dance Theatre are reputed schools of

Bharatanatyam in Malaysia with many more in the field.

“We have a large established Indian population in Southeast Asia

that is closely connected to India. The Indians living in Singapore,

Malaysia and Indonesia consider themselves to be a part of greater

India and classical dances are a part of their lives. Indian culture is

trying to broaden its perspective and transcend the barriers of both

India and diaspora,” says Ramli Ibrahim, one of the best-known

exponents and teachers in Malaysia of Bharatanatyam and Odissi.

Ibrahim has groomed some of the finest dancers in Malaysia at Sutra

and at the same time placed Indian classical dance in the context of

the Malaysian experience.10

Other than Indians learning, one reason foreigners are learning too is

the West’s return to spirituality. Many new age trends are taking

shape and roots in USA, Europe, Australia and the near east and such

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people, both Indians and those coming in contact with them, are

fostering a close interactive relationship with these art forms.