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PAPER: 3
Detail Study Of Bharatanatyam, Devadasis-Natuvnar, Nritya And
Nritta, Different Bani-s, Present Status, Institutions, Artists
Module 18 Institutions Of Bharatanatyam
Present day Bharatanatyam banis / बानी and schools are aplenty.
There are many branches of main banis and some as far as in New
Jersey in USA or Ukhrul in Manipur! Since Bharatanatyam has spread
far and wide, each dancer is adding something to what was learnt
and trying to extend its boundaries and body. Many dancers are also
teachers today, so they are adding new poses or postures and calling
it sub banis or schools.
Schools today mean individual teaching establishments, not a generic
bani or style. It means in one city itself, say small town like Mysore or
Baroda, there could be ten schools of Bharatanatyam. Each teaching
same dance, differently. In that, there is no standardization. In one
area of a big metro like Chennai or Bangalore, Mylapore or
Malleswaram, there are over a dozen teachers teaching from same
bani differently. This is not to break away as much as what one learnt
from a guru and how much.
Schools of Bharatanatyam today within one city can be in hundreds,
especially nerve centre of dance like Chennai. The Dhananjayans,
Chandrasekhars, Ambika Buch, Savitri Jagannath Rao, M.V.
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Narasimhachari and Vasanthalakshmi, Sheejith Krishna, P.T.
Narendran, Shijith Nambiar and Parvathy Menon teach the
Kalakshetra style. J. Suryanarayanamurthy, a disciple of the
Dhananjayans, is a popular teacher. Sreelatha Vinod, Tulsi Badrinath,
Radhika Surajit, Shobana Bhalchandra are ardent disciples of the
Dhananjayans and faithfully follow their teachers’ teachings. From
the K.J. Sarasa school following the Vazhuvoor bani, her prominent
disciples who are in turn teachers themselves are Srekala Bharath
(Tejas School of Bharatanatyam), A. Lakshmanaswamy (Nritya
Lakshnana), Shanmugha Sundaram (Sarasalaya), Lavanya Ananth,
Kavitha Ramu, Swarnamalya Ganesh, and so on. They are all
prominent dancers too. Nandini Ramani is an exponent and teacher
of the Balasaraswathi style. She has no disciple particularly
promoting the bani except her own daughter Sushama Ranganathan
in Chennai and Jaan Freeman in New York.
Parvathi Ravi Ghantasala’s Kala Pradarshini follows Krishnakumari
Narendran’s style. In her school Abhinaya Natyalaya, Krishnakumari
specializes in group productions and promotes Tamil works. Revathi
Ramachandran is a disciple of Mangudi Dorairaj Iyer and in her
school Kala Sadhanalaya, that’s the bani being followed. Urmila
Sathyanarayanan learnt from both Dandayudhapani Pillai and K.J.
Sarasa, so her style combines elements of both gurus. She says the
difference in the banis is suggestive and may not be apparent to the
lay person. She trains many talented students in her Natya
Sankalpaa. In her school Kaladiksha, Meenakshi Chitharanjan
propagates the Pandanallur style that she learnt from Chokkalingam
Pillai and Subbaraya Pillai. Alarmel Valli of the same gurus and same
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bani can boast of Minneapolis based Ranee Ramaswamy and her
daughters Ashwini and Aparna as her popular disciples.
Malavika Sarukkai is a disciple of Guru Kalyanasundaram Pillai of the
Thanjavur style. Lakshmi Vishwanathan also follows the Thanjavur
style having learnt under Guru Elappa Pillai. Both are soloists.
Talented dancers Uma Namboodripad Sathya Narayanan, Sukanya
Ravinder, Lakshmi Parthasarathy Athreya, Arupa Lahiri, Jai Quehani
are all prominent disciples of Chitra Visweswaran trained in
Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai style. Chitra’s student Zakir Hussain has
carved his own path in the Vaishnaivite themes of his choice, even
giving religious discourses.
Bragha Bessell, Jayanthi Subramaniam, Roja Kannan, Sai Santosh
Radhakrishnan follow Adyar Lakshman’s Kalakshetra style. After
Kalanidhi Narayanan, her disciple Bragha is the abhinaya queen to
whom scores go for training in abhinaya. Sudharani Raghupathy and
Narthaki Nataraj follow their Guru Kittappa Pillai’s bani. Sudharani’s
students Priya Murle, Nalini Prakash, Priya and Sheela Dixit, Padma
Raghavan and many others bring pride to the school.
Rhadha is a true Vazhuvoor bani exponent and Indira Rajan of
Kutralam Ganesa Pillai bani has her own set of disciples. Nrithya Pillai
is the granddaughter of Swamimalai Rajarathnam Pillai and
represents his bani. Padma Subrahmanyam, of course, calls her style
Bharata Nrithyam, and her prominent disciples include Gayatri
Kannan, Mahati Kannan and Vineet Radhakrishnan. The movements
are rounded; curvaceous hip movements, serpentine arm
movements, leaps, extended throws of the legs mark this style. Bala
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Devi Chandrasekhar in New Jersey and Jayashree Rajagopalan are
true proponents of Padma’s bani but Janaki Rangarajan, though she
has moved away from her guru’s Bharata Nrityam and calls her style
as Bharatanatyam now, continues to bring in some of the curvy
movements, rather perplexing at times! As one can see, just in
Chennai itself, there are so many variations of Bharatanatyam styles
and this above list is by no means exhaustive but just an indication of
subtle variations in banis.
In capital city like Delhi very few Bharatanatyam teachers are left.
Saroja Vaidyanathan learnt from Lalitha of Triplicane who learnt
from Guru Muthukumaran Pillai of the Kattumannar. Now Saroja is
senior-most, active Bharatanatyam teacher of the capital city who
teaches many hundred students. Her daughter-in-law Rama
Vaidyanathan learnt from Yamini Krishnamurthy but now is part of
Saroja Vaidyanathan school. So this is a good example for bani mixing
with schools. Geeta Chandran learnt from Swarna Saraswathi (no
relation of Balasarswati) and later from her own mridangist K.
Dakshinamoorthy (brother of K. Dandayudhapani Pillai). What she
teaches her students in Natyavruksha, is her own creative approach.
Boundaries of banis are blurring today. Other teachers of Delhi are at
proper schools like Triveni Kala Sangam or Sriram Bharatiya Kala
Kendra, where an American dancer Justin McCarthy is teaching
Bharatanatyam! Many iconic dancers of yesteryears like Yamini
Krishnamurthy also run schools and train students. Delhi has least
number of Bharatanatyam teachers today as all seniors like Indrani
Rahman, M.K. Saroja, Govindarajan Pillai (Sikkil Ramaswamy bani)
have gone or moved city. Their students are seniors now like Jamuna
Krishnan, Radha Marar and Jayalakshmi Eshwar. Navtej Johar trained
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in Chennai Kalakshetra is more into contemporary themes and
teaching of yoga. Delhi has more of Kathak, Orissi and Contemporary
dance today than Bharatanatyam.
In Bangalore, while there are some senior gurus left like Leela
Ramanathan, Radha Shridhar, Bhanumathi and Shridhar-Anuradha,
they cannot be ascribed to any one bani alone. They are all teaching
Bharatanatyam as they learnt from their teachers like Narmada,
Kalakshetra or Pandanallur (via U.S. Krishna Rao and Chandrabhaga
Devi). M. Krishnamurthy imparts training in Kalakshetra style. The
Mysore bani is followed by Lalitha Srinivasan, a student of Guru
Keshavamurthy who later trained in abhinaya under Dr. K.
Venkatalakshamma. Lots of younger male teachers of
Bharatanatyam abound in Bangalore. In fact, maximum in any metro
of India, like Sanjay Shantaram, Satyanarayana Raju, Praveen Kumar
and Vasanth Kiran. Satyanarayana Raju and Praveen Kumar are both
disciples of Narmada. Now Praveen trains under Guru C.V.
Chandrasekhar of Kalakshetra bani. Many males are learning
Bharatanatyam in Bangalore and teaching at junior level like Anil
Iyer, Seshadri Iyengar and Mithun Shyam. Teachers who have lots of
students are Anuradha Vikranth of Drishti, her gurus Nirupama-
Rajendra (Nirupama learnt from Padma Subrahmanyam) while
Sandhya-Kiran propagate the Kalakshetra bani since they are
disciples of the Dhananjayans. Padmini Ravi remained a teacher to all
of these and more before and she continues to dabble in dance. Vani
Ganapathy remains Bharatanatyam star dancer of Bangalore and
also teaches. Yamini Muthanna combines yoga and Bharatanatyam
as does Vasundhara Doraswamy of Mysore. Rajaratnalaya Arts
Foundation headed by Jayakamala Pandian follows Swamimalai SK
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Rajaratnam Pillai’s bani. Bangalore has over 100 registered
Bharatanatyam dance teaching schools. Guru C. Radhakrishna
follows the Mysore style of Bharatanatyam as do his disciples
Padmini Shreedhar, Pulakeshi Kasturi and Veena Sridhar.
Jayalakshmi Alva, the first and foremost disciple of K.N.
Dandayudhapani Pillai, also trained in abhinaya under Swarna
Saraswati and Gowri Ammal. She founded the Sridevi Nrithya
Kendra in Mangalore in 1974. She is ably supported by her daughter
Araty Shetty.
Once the pride of India in Bharatanatyam, Mumbai has very few
Bharatanatyam schools of repute left. While Shanmukhananda Sabha
promoted and offered a platform to+65 lots of Bharatanatyam
teachers, it was Sri Raja Rajeswari Bharatha Natya Kala Mandir that
created dancers, many known names in three generations like Vani
Ganapathy and sisters, Namita Bodaji, Nandini Krishna, Malavika
Sarukkai and many of today’s younger lot. Many reputed gurus like
Mahalingam Pillai taught there and Guru Kalyanasundaram Pillai is
one of the busiest Bharatanatyam gurus with legions of students.
Kalasadan Institute of Fine Arts is another popular school founded by
Guru Mani in 1954. Mani learnt from Karunambal and her husband
Govindaraja Pillai under the guidance of Kuppiah Pillai of Sri Raja
Rajeswari Bharatha Natya Kala Mandir. Some of the others teaching
in Mumbai are Smt Jyothy Mohan, senior Guru Smt Raji Narayan,
Dipak Parashar etc.
Today Nalanda under Science Ministry grant and Mumbai University
teaches some Bharatanatyam under teachers like Malathi
Agneswaran and Vaibhav Arekar. Mumbai also has influx of films and
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many stars like Vyjayanthimala, Hema Malini and Meenakshi
Seshadri showcased Bharatanatyam as they were trained in that
form. Jayashree Rajagopalan represents her Guru Padma
Subrahmanyam’s style in Mumbai. Lata Raman and Chandra Anand
carry the torch of the Raja Rajeswari school. Prakriti Bhaskar and
Prakriti Kashyap are both disciples of T.S. Kadirvelu Pillai. Sandhya
Purecha propagates her Guru Acharya Parvati Kumar’s teachings and
style. Deepak Mazumdar’s most prized disciple is Pavitra Bhatt who
is making a good name for himself as a fine dancer and is much in
demand in group productions of other gurus!
Pune also benefitted from Maratha Tanjore connections of Acharya
Parvati Kumar and his student like Sucheta Chapekar Bhide. Sucheta
is Kittappa Pillai’s disciple and has adapted Marathi compositions to
Bharatanatyam. Today, Pune University and many individual dancers
like Swati Datar, Manik Ambike, Parimal Phadke promote this form.
Near Pune is the Chinmaya Naada Bindu Gurukul where the dance
teacher is America returned Ramaa Bharadvaj, a prime disciple of
Kamala Laxminarayanan (Vazhuvoor style). Anuradha Shinde
propagates the Kalakshetra style.
Hyderabad had T.K. Narayan (disciple of Meenakshisundaram Pillai
and Muthukumara Pillai) whose Academy of Bharatanatyam
established in 1948 was run by him and his musician wife
Jayalakshmi. Their daughter Gayatri Kesavan carries on his work in
Bangalore. The daughter of V.S. Ramamoorthy (Dandayudhapani
Pillai bani), Manjula Ramaswamy continues in her father’s tradition.
Now leading teachers of Bharatanatyam in Hyderabad are Ananda
Shankar Jayant (trained in Kalakshetra), Geeta Ganesan (disciple of
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V.S. Ramamoorthy), Rajeswari Sainath (disciple of Indra Rajan). Now
Kuchipudi has taken over the region, naturally.
Apart from Kerala forms, Shyamala Surendran, Kalamandalam
Sugandhi, Kalamandalam Saraswathy, Girija Chandran, Neena
Prasad, Kalamandalam Kshemavathy and many others are trained in
Bharatanatyam and also impart training. N Srikanth and his wife
Aswathy Nair (daughter of Kalamandalam Saraswathy) find it more
lucrative to be based in Kerala than Chennai and have found much
success there. Srikanth is a disciple of Padma Subrahmanyam. Many
stars like Rajashree Warrier and Manju Warrier seriously pursue
Bharatanatyam while others have let their dance be glossed over by
filmy movements and expressions. One is not sure what bani
Shobana presents in her performances as it seems to be a mix of
various styles!
Present day schools are many in each city and town. Too many to
count here but suffice it to say in places like Ahmedabad (Mrinalini
and Mallika Sarabhai’s Darpana, Elakshi Thakore’s Nritya Bharati,
Radha and Bhaskar Menon’s Mudra School of Indian Classical
Dances, etc) and Baroda with the Maharaja Sayajirao University with
Mohan Khokar, Smt. Anjali Merh, Kubernath Tanjorkar, C.V.
Chandrasekhar, Parul Shah. Bharatanatyam has flourished in Gujarat
since its arrival to Baroda in late 1800s. Many students, graduating
from the Dept of Dance at the M S University have started their
institutions in Gujarat, India and Internationally not only in USA and
UK but also in Singapore, Australia, Mauritius, Kenya and such.
In Kolkota, Khagendra Nath Barman of Kalakshetra, teaches
Bharatanatyam at the Rabindra Bharati University along with Alay
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Das. Thankamani Kutty’s Kalamandalam, another go to institution for
learning Bharatanatyam, has widened the scope by adapting
Bharatanatyam to Bengali works like those of Rabindranath Tagore.
She has more than 1000 students and some of them teach in the
smaller towns of West Bengal too.
Many dancers also shifted and settled abroad like Ram Gopal in
London, Ritha Devi and Indrani Rahman in NYC, etc. Canada too had
its share of such examples like Jhanak Khendry and Jai Govinda.
Anne-Marie Gaston (Guru Ellappa Pillai) is a renowned exponent and
writer too. Lata Pada is a product of Sri Raja Rajeswari Bharata Natya
Kala Mandir in Mumbai, while Hari Krishnan is Kittappa Pillai’s
disciple. Priyamvada Shankar is T. Balasaraswati’s disciple, so the
different banis seem to be well represented in Canada.
Kathak and Bharatanatyam are the most popular dance forms in UK
with many established dancers and dance gurus like Piali Ray,
Chitralekha Bolar, Anusha Subramanyam (Kalakshetra), Usha
Raghavan, Pushkala Gopal, Chitra Sundaram (trained under various
gurus in Mumbai and Chennai) and Nina Rajarani (disciple of The
Dhananjayans and Prakash Yadagudde) to name a few.
There are as many Bharatanatyam dance schools and dancers in the
US. In California, Viji Prakash imparts training she had from her gurus
Kalyanasundaram and Mahalingam Pillai, of the Sri Raja Rajeshwari
Bharata Natya Kala Mandir; Malathi Iyengar is Narmada’s disciple;
Vidhya Subramanian and Nirupama Vaidyanathan are Swamimalai
Rajaratnam Pillai’s disciples. In Chicago, Hema Rajagopalan is a much
sought after guru who learnt from Swarna Saraswati, K.N.
Dandayudhapani Pillai and his brother. In Houston, Ratna Papa hails
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from K.J. Sarasa bani. Many Bharatanatyam students of the M S
University of Baroda have settled in different parts of USA, running
dance classes and making a good name for their institution like Dr
Francis Barboza, Pratima Patel, Nipa Desai, Kshama Modi.
Banis today are blurring. Students are going in for learning items
from various gurus of different banis. They put in their own creativity
too and many times, Bharatanatyam is used as a springboard to
choreograph Dance theater or creative choreography, so what you
see bears no resemblance to what one can identify as a particular
bani of Bharatanatyam.
Many quote realities of urban stress and times we live in to drive
home the point that serious guru-shishya / गुरु-शिष्य relationship of
yore is not doable today. When Skype and DVD gurus are in the
market, when students don’t make time and gurus are mere
factories for functions projecting themselves, how can banis
continue? Does it matter anyway? Today a student also learns from
multiple teachers/quasi gurus, so how can the stamp of one
individual bani or guru remain? What’s the relevance of a school, a
style, a bani? Is it now a mere memory of the past or a meaningful
reference point? Is it mere nomenclature or an important sub culture
within a form? Banis are important so long as gurus are gurus and
not merely money making machines. There is nothing wrong with
making money but there is a difference of degree. In olden days,
gurus were not in the market. They sat in their villages and all
famous names trudged to them to seek knowledge. Ram Gopal,
Mrinalini Sarabhai, U.S. Krishna Rao all went to their guru’s village to
learn. Today, the guru has come to the city market. Or shall we say,
the market has come to some gurus! End result shows: Cloning is
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easy; making a true artiste is not. That proves yet another point:
Great artistes are born, not made.1
When the dance becomes a technique of movement and a body
language, with its traditional music, literature and poetry being
regarded as ancillaries, which are incidental, Bharatanatyam is bound
to be divested of the ideas and value structure it has been wrapped
in. While the intent of art may well be the same, the inflection is
changing according to the different context it is living in. And it is a
question of what part of the tradition one picks out for emphasis in
one's work. If tradition is what one generation passes on to the next,
what a student in the diaspora will inherit from teachers born out of
present day practitioners, may well be different from what is passed
on to a student in the Indian context where also the totality of the
dance is being seen in parts, but where a measure of music / dance /
language togetherness still exists. Diaspora students are less inclined
to accept without questioning, even in the early stages, what the
teacher teaches. With the cross fertilizing of ideas, dance debates
certainly seem to be on a different level in some of these countries.
Bharatanatyam will, as far as one can see, live in many
manifestations — as a tool for relaxation, as a stimulant, as a tool for
revolting against norms, as worship, as just a body discipline adding
to one's vocabulary of movement and whatever. What the dance
means to one person may well be different from what it means to
another in a different cultural milieu. After all even in India, we have
produced a Chandralekha who thinks so very differently. Will the
future Bharatanatyam have the same identity? One doubts it. And in
the meanwhile one hopes like Katherine Kunhiraman that the dance
is not mixed with “cream cheese and chocolate sauce” and retains a
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measure of its own self as we recognize it. No one set of persons, it
would seem, can set the dance format for all time.2