How Kamala set the Bharatanatyam stage for the long run

Bharatanatyam as a dance kind within the post-revival years was popularised significantly by somebody so well-known that many dad and mom named their daughters after her. She impressed women from middle-class households to take up the dance kind at a time when girls from non-hereditary caste areas had been discouraged to take action.

Described because the ‘Queen of Dance’ by none aside from Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Kumari Kamala (now Kamala Lakshminarayanan), a toddler prodigy, blazed a Bharatanatyam path throughout the nation and past together with her electrifying performances within the Vazhuvoor model. The legendary dancer, who moved to the U.S. in 1980, turned 90 this June.

Initially educated in Kathak by Shambu Maharaj and Lachhu Maharaj, Kamala, aged simply 4, began performing small objects within the recitals of senior artistes. After witnessing her debut efficiency on the Asthika Samajam in Bombay, movie producer and director Chandulal Shah provided her a contract of Rs 500 a month to bop in all his movies.

Later, Kamala and her household needed to transfer again to the South through the World Conflict. Thus started her tryst with Bharatanatyam. Kamala’s first instructor was Kattumannarkoil Muthukumaraswamy Pillai. He later launched Kamala to Vazhuvoor Ramaiah Pillai, paving the best way for a superb collaboration. Being certainly one of Vazhuvoor’s earliest disciples, Kamala helped him take his choreography to the lots via her foray into movies as an actor.

Within the Forties and Fifties, Kamala attained nice heights for executing never-before-seen items such because the snake dance together with her signature again bend, which later went on to grow to be an arangetram staple. In the course of the freedom motion, Kamala’s particular movie numbers corresponding to ‘Aaduvome pallu paaduvome’ and ‘Vetri ettu dhikku’ had been highly effective instruments of resistance towards the imperial authorities.

A thillana dance sequence within the movie Chori Chori (1956) was certainly one of Kamala’s greatest on-screen performances again then and continues to fascinate lovers of classical music and dance even immediately. M.L.Vasanthakumari, who lent her voice even seems on the display as a lead singer within the orchestra that accompanies the dancer.

Whereas movie roles poured in, Kamala concurrently carried out on stage. Dancer and scholar Lakshmi Viswanathan who as soon as interviewed Kamala for The Hindu wrote that Kamala’s early publicity to a sure self-discipline moulded her into an important artiste. “The crisp and fast actions meant to suit into a very quick cine-musical piece, in addition to the sense of drama in elegant poses to be captured by the digital camera, formed Kamala’s childhood. It’s no shock that when she reached the highest as a stage artiste, she confronted her viewers with an enviable elan,” she wrote.

Kamala, who danced with no break yearly from 1941 to 1979 on the Music Academy December competition, in addition to different sabhas, had new items repeatedly composed to go well with her.

Kamala holds many firsts to her credit score. In April 1963, Tyagaraja’s musical opera Nauka Charitram was staged for the primary time as a ballet. Kamala, who was the producer and choreographer, additionally performed the chief function within the geya nataka, assisted by her sisters and members of her troupe.

MADRAS MISCELLANY: KUMARI KAMALA, DANCER.

Although she was a stickler for custom, she introduced in refreshing concepts into the artwork. Conventionally, hereditary dancers transfer again after a jathi or a korvai and stand. This was known as ‘vishranti’ and was utilized by dancers to take a quick break. In Vazhuvoorar’s model, dancers assumed the poses of temple sculptures throughout this break. This was a marked departure from custom.

Kamala believed that custom was not one thing fixed and that it evolves with time. True to her conviction, she was the primary to choreograph items corresponding to Swati Tirunal’s ‘Bhavayami raghuramam’, Oothukkadu Venkatakavi’s ‘Ananda nartana ganapatim’ and even the favored Nattakuranji varnam ‘Chalamela’. Reviewers typically questioned the aptness of sure songs in her dance performances, however they turned normalised with time.

Kamala possessed a uncommon ability as a Bharatanatyam guru. She has to her credit score a number of dance dramas corresponding to ‘Sakuntalam’, ‘Prahlada Bhakti Vijayam’, and ‘Sri Krishnamashraye’.

In October 1979, members of a examine group of the Music Division of the Colgate College, New York, got here to Madras and learnt their first steps in Bharatanatyam from Kamala on Vijayadasami day. In simply three months, the American college students introduced a Kuravanji dance drama with Kamala’s different sishyas. From an schooling standpoint, Kamala’s setting of an bold goal accelerated the educational course of. From a creative standpoint, it was a valiant effort by Kamala as she dared to forged an American pupil Elizabeth Hartman because the heroine Mohanavalli. Even within the orchestra, Colgate College college students performed the veena, and mridangam, did nattuvangam and even sang. Colgate was among the many first American faculties to introduce the examine of Carnatic music and the credit score for this should go to Professor William Skelton, who labored with Kamala on this manufacturing.

Skelton felt that the hassle was significant sufficient to “create Indophiles and never simply vacationers whose nice experiences evaporate as shortly as they’re shaped”.

Kamala’s thillana in Chori Chori is taken into account certainly one of her greatest on-screen performances
| Picture Credit score:
Particular Association

Kamala’s social conscience as a performing artiste may be gauged from the truth that the proceeds from the present went totally to a hospital in her hometown of Mayiladathurai to construct a brand new kids’s ward.

After an extended and shiny profession in India, Kamala moved to America as she felt she was not getting sufficient assist from the federal government right here. Identified to all the time converse her thoughts, she mentioned in her ‘Nritya Choodamani’ award ceremony in 1989 {that a} dancer’s incomes time was quick and pleaded that tax not be levied on the revenue of an artiste after 15 years of service. She additionally sought nationwide honour and recognition for dancers, as was prolonged to sportspersons.

Kamala’s divorce from her first husband, the famed cartoonist R.Okay. Laxman, in 1960 was a lot talked about and was one of many earliest divorces within the Hindu neighborhood in India as there was no authorized framework that might formalise a divorce earlier than the enactment of the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955. Afterward, Kamala went on to marry T.V. Lakshminarayanan, in defiance of social norms at the moment.

As an octogenarian and senior dance exponent, Kamala possesses the knowledge and mental maturity to admire youthful dancers for his or her displays.

Within the U.S., Kamala began Sri Bharatha Kamalalaya in Lengthy Island, the place she educated quite a few college students. She additionally often drove right down to different cities for courses, conserving herself energetic. As a residing legend, her legacy continues via her college students.