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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