Two More Busby Berkeley-Inspired Top Shots in 1930s Indian Film Dances

October 18, 2013, 8:03 pm

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In my post last year about Dance in Early Indian Cinema, I had marveled at the technical advancements in Indian film dances from the 1930s like that in Raitu Bidda (1939), Chandrasena (1935), and Amrit Manthan (1934)—the last of which featured overhead camera "top shots" inspired by the famous Hollywood choreographer Busby Berkeley that frame the dancers in novel geometric patterns.

Recently I happened onto two more examples of the top shot technique in 1930s Indian film dance: Rajput Ramani (Hindi, 1936) and Rambayin Kaathal (Tamil, 1939)! This suggests the technique must have been fairly popular in Indian cinema at that time, and it's easy to see why it was so. Moving the camera away from the static, theatrical frontal position must have been awe inspiring in those days (and it still is today!)

Rajput Ramani (Hindi, 1936) - "Ayi Sakhi Kya Bahar" - Starting at :30, the number begins with an overhead shot of the hands of a circle of dancing women. The camera slowly rises, and then we see a level shot inside same dancing circle that gives the viewer a frame of reference. The number advances at 1:05 when the women individually spin inward and outward, and at 2:10 the extensions of the women's clothing as they spin create pinwheels! Like Amrit Manthan, Rajput Ramaniwas directed by V. Shantaram and produced by Prabhat Films, a renowned studio in its day known for its talented art department. Aren't the cuts to the audience watching the dance performance interesting. Their view is quite boring, but our view, thanks to the possibilities the camera creates, is mesmerizing!

Rambayin Kaathal (Tamil, 1939—not 1956!) - According to Randor Guy, this successful film centered around the heavenly dancer Ramba and her trials. I adore this courtly group dance number featuring six young women! The emphasis on the sounds of the ghungroo bells, the jewelry and arm ornaments, the choreography—everything about the number looks very old and quite different from the film dances seen in the late 1940s and onwards. My favorite part begins at 1:17 where we see a routine group dance number performed on top of a design on the court floor. At 1:46, the girls start to move in a more complex pattern and then at 1:50—bam! The Busby Berkeley-inspired top-shot appears and suddenly the dance is transformed into beautiful circle and weaving patterns as the dancers move on top of the same floor design pattern. Once again, a dance technique possible only on film!

Also, I found a few more very vintage-looking 1930s film dances (but with no top shots)—from Rambayin Kaathal"Ithanai Naalaai" and the solo court dance "Jeya Ranjitha," and another solo court dance in Singahad(1933).

To close, here are two video compilations of some great Busby Berkeley film choreography! Unfortunately embedding doesn't work: video one, video two. Happy viewing!

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Odissi Dance in Odia Films - Including a Rare Dance in Lalita (1949)!

November 28, 2013, 10:20 pm

≫ Next: Odissi Dance in Indian Cinema Outside Odisha

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I must start this post immediately with a startling find—a 25-second clip of "Odissi" dance from Lalita (1949), the second Odia-language film ever made. Odissi dance as we know it today was not even formed yet in 1949! It would be years before the dance form became known outside of its regional borders, into the late 1950s before it started to become codified into its modern design and format through the Jayantika project, and into the 1960s before it flowered and was fully recognized as one of India's classical dance forms. Take a look at this gem:

Start 1:35

While the clip is short and hastily edited, the full scene appears to be set inside an Odishan temple where rituals and dances for Lord Jagannath are being performed. The dancer, presumably meant to be a mahari (Odishan devadasi), appears and after prostrating herself before the Lord she settles into one of the elemental postures of Odissi dance, the Chauk. A jump cup reveals the dancer rotating one of her hands in the characteristic Odissi hand gesture “hamsasya.” Fascinating evidence of these dance elements from 1949.

As elaborated upon further on in this post, in 1940s Odisha brief and simple dance presentations of varying inspirations were increasing in popularity in the new professional theaters, and young girls from privileged backgrounds began learning and performing dance amidst the awakening cultural scene in Cuttack. The dance above was filmed in the latter part of the decade when the beginnings of what we know as Odissi movement vocabulary today was gaining ground in the collaborative atmosphere of professional theater.

Mahari Suhasini, 1958 - Source: Central Sangeet Natak Akademi

While it's important to recognize that the dance above is a "film dance" and its intentions in presentation authenticity are unknown, it's intriguing to analyze the brief portrayal and try to make inferences from it. The dancer's appearance seems to have more affinity with other film dances of the period which took on their own style from various sources of the day. Compare the costume and jewelry of the film dancer with the picture of the Jagannath temple Mahari on the right (taken in 1958). The film dancer's blouse is not velvet (as was customary for Maharis) but rather sateen, and her jewelry-lined ears and decorated side bun seem unusual. The velveteen belt with the long frontispiece reminds me of Manipuri costume (especially Sadhona Bose's costume in her so-called Manipuri dances in Raj Nartaki), and the artistic design is similar to that worn by Kelucharan Mohapatra and Laxmipriya in a photo of their 1947 Dashavatara performance (see in history section below). The film dancer's appearance also seems to differ significantly from the pictures of Priyambada Mohanty in her dance costumes in the 1940s and 50s some of which are shown below.

The biggest mystery of the film dance is the identity of the dancer. I suspect she was either involved with professional theater at the time or was one of the few young women from outside the tradition learning dance. Surely someone out there knows who she is...

Note: While many varied spellings abound due to the difficulty in transliterating the r/d sound, as of 2011 the official spelling by law is Odisha (not Orissa) and Odia (not Oriya). Likewise, Odissi seems to be the preference though Orissi has also been used.

Odissi Dance History

For a concise summary of the history of Odissi dance, I like this quote from Anurima Banerji's dissertation "Odissi Dance: Paratopic Performance of Gender, State, and Nation":

Gotipua Bandha formation

Commonly perceived as the oldest classical dance in India, Odissi originated in the eastern state of Orissa. Presented as a traditional style in discourses of classical Indian art, Odissi is actually the modern appellation for an amalgam of Orissan forms. The earliest known evidence of Odissi’s antecedents can be traced to ancient India (around the 1st century BCE) in the dance style known as Odra-Magadhi, which constituted a form of professional entertainment, interweaving dimensions of the secular and the sacred.  In the 10th century CE, dance was introduced as a devotional practice in Orissa, performed to honour the Hindu divine. This temple style [was] called mahari naach (or, the dance of the maharis, female ritual specialists). [...] Stigmatized by British imperialists and indigenous elites, allegedly for its ties to prostitution, mahari naach was forced underground in the nineteenth-century era of the British Raj. Earlier in the 16th century, with the advent of the Bhakti movement in eastern India, another lineage emerged—the gotipua tradition of young boys embodying the feminine in public dance performance. This tradition escaped colonial scrutiny and survived into the early decades of the 20th century.

By the 1930s, the dance scene in Orissa aligned with a new cultural environment. As mahari naach diminished in stature, concert dances crafted in indigenous idioms began to emerge in the context of Indian nationalism. Inspired by prominent choreographers like Uday Shankar, an innovator in modern Indian dance, and Rukmini Devi, a pioneering figure in classical Bharatanatyam, dancers in Orissa began to develop their own novel style for the stage. [...] Postcolonial architects of the dance composed a new genre, based on the principles of the ancient texts, like the Natyashastra, Abhinaya Darpanam, and Abhinay Chandrika; [...] imagery drawn from sculpture and visual art, profuse in Orissa; the rich poetic and musical repertoires of the region, especially the Geeta Govinda; syncretic religious influences, from Jainism and Shaivism, to Shakti, Bhakti, and the cult of Jagannath; the combined streams of Odra-Magadhi, gotipua and mahari naach, and Odra naach; and theatrical forms like jatra, raas-leela, and local dance drama. The reconstruction, fusion, and refinement of these congeries of forms culminated in the dance aesthetic we brand classical “Odissi” today."

As Alessandra Lopez y Royo puts it, "the real history of Odissi is more interesting and exciting than its myth of origin"—the myth of an ancient temple dance transplanted directly from the temples to the stage. As I researched Odissi's history I was fascinated to learn how what we know as Odissi today is a "superstructure crafted but [sixty] years ago, erected on the foundation of lean pickings" that largely owes its evolution to the "foothold" the dance form gained in the theater community in Odisha ²². What follows is my writeup of Odissi's past and construction as taken from the sources listed at the end of this post and in my best attempt to address inconsistencies in the data.

Most of the men who were part of the history of modern Odissi were exposed to or part of the music and dance traditions of early twentieth-century Odisha. This includes the well-known four architects of Odissi dance, Pankaj Charan Das, Kelucharan Mohapatra, Debaprasad Das, and Mayadhar Raut, as well as many other names of the period who are less remembered or nearly forgotten today. Some of the men had families attached to temple rituals and mahari dance, and most of them trained as gotipuas or were exposed to the gymnasium-like akhadas where young boys were trained in gymnastics, dance, and acrobatics.

Jatra in Raghurajpur - Source: [16]

But it was the open-air, roving drama groups who performed forms like Jatra or Ram/Ras/Krishna Leela that proved to be the most influential in shaping history. Most accounts of the four architects of Odissi dance describe their childhood fascination with these drama troupes or the local akhadas. Both Mohan Sundardev Goswami and Kalicharan Patnaik operated Ras Leela troupes that included Kelucharan Mohapatra and Mayadhar Raut as performers. Kalicharan Patnaik then began Orissa Theaters in 1939/40 and ushered in a revolution of modern Odishan theater with a fixed proscenium stage, complex lighting and decor, and high acting standards. Other theaters sprang up, such as Annapurna Theaters and New Theaters, and the best minds in music and dance migrated to these new opportunities. The Annapurna Theater was the first to present young girls from the theater communities on stage for dance numbers, and other theaters soon followed suit. Dance as presented in the theaters at that time was simple and stylized, "had no independent status or identity"¹² and existed simply "to embellish the dramas, often without any rhyme or reason"¹³. The theater dance directors came from a wide variety of backgrounds, such as the above mentioned folk theater, akhadas, and gotipua training, but also from Chhau dance and training at Uday Shankar's institution in Almora. A popular style in Odisha at the time was "Oriental Dance" or "Adhunika Geeta" based on tribal adivasi and folk movements.

Priyambada Mohanty was among the first girls from a middle to upper-class background outside of the theater communities to learn Odissi dance. In her book on Odissi dance, she relates that in early 1940s Odisha dance was "looked down upon," seen as the exclusive domain of the touring gotipua groups patronised by zamindars, and was considered something not practiced by middle and upper-class families. Priyambada describes how dance was introduced to the circles she was part of:

"In the early 1940's, a Bengali dance teacher, Shri Banbehari Maity, from Midnapur arrived in Cuttack to make a living as a dance teacher. Little did he know that Oriya girls just did not learn dance. Of course, this was a time when love for music and specifically dance in Bengal, had been sparked by people like Uday Shankar and promoted by Gurudev Shri Rabindranath Tagore. Orissa being a neighboring state, he thought people must be interested in learning dance and therefore he came to Cuttack-the centre for cultural activities in those days. Of course, Utkal Sangeet Samaj had been started as early as 1933 and people were taking interest in teaching children music but nobody danced. My father and some of his contemporaries took pity on him and hired him as a dance teacher more to rehabilitate him than to teach their daughters dancing. This is how dance entered the aristocratic families and Maity gave lessons in about half a dozen of them."

It seems there was at least one other dance teacher giving similar lessons, and the style was a sort of general "oriental dance" of the day that borrowed from various known styles. Priyambada then started learning dance from the Odissi music doyen Singhari Shyam Sundar Kar, and her occasional short pure dance pieces became popular at schools and soon cultural events. By the late 1940s, more girls were learning what we call "Odissi" dance today and schools were holding dance competitions.

Kelucharan Mohapatra and Laxmipriya in Dashavatara - Source: [16]

Among this public awakening and interest in dance, it was the Annapurna Theater that became a key host in the formation of modern Odissi dance. In the mid-1940s, Kelucharan Mohapatra and his future wife Laxmipriya's dances choreographed by Pankaj Charan Das and Durllav Chandra Singh impressed the public and proved popular. The 1947 Dashavatara dance performed by Kelucharan and Laxmipriya in 1947 was groundbreaking with its alternating abhinaya and rhythmic dance sequences and a form that has "remained more or less unchanged even til today" in Odissi ⁶. Inspired by the beautiful and talented Laxmipriya, more girls from privileged backgrounds began to learn the dance form despite the negative attitudes still prevalent towards dance. Among them were some of the big names in Odissi dance—Sanjukta Mishra (later Panigrahi, and the first girl to pursue Odissi as a lifelong career), Minati Das (later Mishra), Jayanti Ghosh, and KumKum Das (later Mohanty).

Into the 1950s Odissi began to expand and gain an identity, and Cuttack became the center of culture and changing attitudes towards dance. The arts training center Kala Vikash Kendra which began in 1952 and was supported by Babulal Doshi, became a critical center for the codification of Odissi dance and music training, and all the big names of Odissi associated with it at one time. Interestingly, among the first three students of the Kendra were Sadhona Bose (who danced in Raj Nartaki and other films) and her cousin Basanti Bose. For the first ten years, the institution taught Bharatanatyam, Manipuri, Kathak, and Odishan folk dances in addition to the few Odissi items. Gradually other institutions opened or began training in dance, such as the National Music Association of Cuttack.

In the early and mid 1950s, the dance form began to be known outside of Odisha particularly through the performances of Priyambada Mohanty and Sanjukta Mishra/Panigrahi in New Delhi and Calcutta which attracted the attention of the dance community most of whom had never seen the style before. But Odissi was not fully formed yet and performances were at most 15 minutes in length.

 

Priyamabada Mohanty in Mahari-style costume - Source: [16]

Left: 1956 Inter-University Youth Festival, Right: 1955

The late 1950s and 1960s saw Odissi expanded and codified into its modern format. Kalicharan Pattanayak, after dismantling his Orissa Theatres, became instrumental in researching Odissi history's connections to the Natyashastra and presented his findings at the 1958 All-India Dance Seminar in New Delhi where Jayanti Ghosh demonstrated Odissi dance--a historic event for the dance form! (Also, the coining of the term "Odissi" for the dance is largely attributed to Pattanayak in in the mid-1950s.) With the benefit of Sanjukta Panigrahi and Mayadhar Raut's studies at Kalakshetra, the Jayantika project was formed by gurus and scholars who set out solely to codify an agreed-upon Odissi dance style.  The dance was refined and sanskritized and the costume and jewelry standardized. The "puspa chuda" style of arranging the hair in a bun surrounded by the pith circle and tahia was designed in 1959, and the distinctive silver bengapatia belt was first donned by Sanjukta in 1963. For some time the dance struggled to gain recognition as it was initially considered at best a variation of Bharatanatyam and at worst a poor imitation of it (supposedly the words of Rukimini Devi!). Indrani Rehman's learning of the dance form from Guru Debaprasad Das and her subsequent international tours took Odissi dance far and wide.

The connection of Odissi dance with the Mahari temple dancers is controversial. It seems generally acknowledged that Odissi dance as we know it today was largely taken from the Gotipua tradition. Some claim that what was left of the Mahari's dance in the 1940s and 50s was so disintegrated that reconstruction could not done.  But Anurima Banerji suggests another angle, writing, "Although the maharis who had kept Odissi alive underground were still accessible, they were deliberately excluded and distanced in this process, as they bore the stigma of prostitution and became associated with the degradation of culture. The effort to classicize Odissi was very much tied to purifying it of an explicitly erotic history, to ensure its lasting appeal to the elite and to seal its status as an authentic symbol of nationhood." Anurima also notes that unlike the "large body of scholarship on this history of the devadasi's metamorphosis into the prostitute, predominantly focusing on South India,""there is comparatively little scholarship on the specific status of maharis in Orissa [in] the colonial period."

Modern "Mahari" dancer

In Odisha today, Gotipua and Mahari dances are still being performed as well as Odissi. Gotipua troupes have been given more patronage and dedicated festivals in recent years. Comparing Gotipua dance to Odissi, Ramli Ibrahim notes, "the movements are the same but the style and approach is different. Of course, there are also acrobatic movements derived from yoga, as well as tribal and folk movements [in Gotipua dance]," and the Gotipua dance is "very raw and exuberant" and does not have the "refinement or sophistication of the contemporary odissi." And then there are those women who are performing and trying to revive the dance of the Maharis. Rupashree Mohapatra operates the only Mahari dance school in Odisha and operates an annual "Mahari Festival", and the Guru Pankaj Charan Odissi Research Foundation gives out a "Mahari Award," Isn't it interesting how different each region of India is in the way its various streams of dance interacted, strengthened or faded away as the single classical dance forms were reconstructed in the 1930s-60s!

Due to differences that arose from the four main Odissi gurus, Odissi has at least four distinct styles today with some significant variation, one associated with each founding guru, and some scholars suggest Surendranath Jena and Nrityagram as fifth and sixth styles ^1,15. It is Kelucharan Mohapatra's style that has unquestionably predominated to this day.

Film Connections

Something that most writings about Odissi dance history leave out are the connections the prominent names had with cinema in Odisha. The artistically-rich backgrounds of these individuals surely shaped the presentation and inclusion of dance in Odia cinema right from the very first production.

Mohan Sundar Dev Goswami

The "father of Odia cinema" who produced the first Odia film, Sita Bibaha, in 1936 against financial struggle and little Odishan infrastructure was none other than Mohan Sundardev Goswami, who as mentioned above headed a popular Ras Leela group (and also later taught dance to Odissi Guru Mayadhar Raut in a short-lived Annapurna Theater C offshoot). Not surprisingly, the film is said to have had "carefully chosen" settings for the dances and the songs which were written partly by Goswami. Unfortunately, the print is said to be lost. Sadly, Goswami died in 1948, and had he lived longer he surely would have continued to make an impact on Odishan cinema and arts.

While Kali Charan Pattanayak (Pattnaik) is best remembered for his scholarly contributions to the recognition of Odissi as a classical dance form, he was also involved in Odishan cinema. Odiamoviedatabase credits him as the sole musician for Lalita (1949) and as one of the lyricists for Rolls 28 (1951), Kedar Gouri (1954), Jayadev (1987), Krushna Sudama (1978), and Sakshi Gopinath (1978). His one and only film appearance was a role in Naari (1963) which also had Durlab Singh (influential composer in theater dance) in the cast. Another scholar, Lokanath Mishra, was part of the Jayantika project and was likely the same Lokanatha Mishra who was in the cast of Lalita (1949).

Babulal Doshi, who as noted above supported the Kala Vikash Kendra institution, produced a number of Odia films that no doubt benefited from his love of Odishan arts. Among his productions were Arundathi (about a dancer and filled with dance numbers), Adina Megha (said to contain dances),.Amada Bata, and Matira Manish.

And last but not least, many eminent Odissi dancers (notably Sanjukta Panigrahi, Minati Mishra, and Sangeeta Das) and gurus (notably Kelucharan Mohapatra) performed and composed Odissi (and some folk) numbers in Odia films. These performances provide us priceless visual archives of the dance form at that time as it was reflected in cinema.

Unfortunately, after reading example after example of these dances and embarking upon my research with excited anticipation, I ended up finding very few video examples to put in this post. But I know there are more out there! The Lalita dance at the beginning of the post? It has a TarangTV logo in the corner and was clearly recorded from a TV broadcast which means the print of the film is out there, digitized, and is probably occasionally shown on TarangTV! If only they would publish their schedule online I could watch their online streaming service through YuppTV. Lalita is also part of a group of films that were screened by film enthusiasts in Odisha a couple years ago, so there are in existence prints of quite a few old classics. And looking at old Odia songs on YouTube, most of them have VCD branding in the corners but I've been unsuccessful at finding any of these VCDs for sale online. I wish I could fly to Odisha and peruse the VCD shops!

Here is a list of all the Odia films which are said to contain Odissi dances or folk dances by eminent Odissi dancers with Kelucharan's dances and choreographies grouped separately.

Film Choreographies of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra 

Kelucharan - Source

Among the core architects of modern Odissi, most were exposed to cinema in their youth.  Mayadhar Raut as a child had run away to Bombay in an unsuccessful attempt to join films, and Pankaj Charan Das used to sell items outside of cinemas and would imitate the dance numbers for his friends. Kelucharan Mohapatra was no exception. He was a member of Goswami's Ras troupe and watched his maiden film Sita Bibaha. Kelucharan had intensive compositional training around 1947 in the Uday Shankar style under Dayal Sharana who had studied at the Almora center, and when Shankar's dance film Kalpana released Kelucharan watched it 40 times!

Kelucharan had the most extensive, known involvement with cinema and choreographed Odissi (and some folk numbers) for at least twelve Odia and Bengali films starting from his Jayantika days in 1958 through the 1980s. Writes Illeana Citaristi (whose book served as the source for most of this section), "During the shooting of these films, Kelucharan did not just give instructions regarding the execution of the choreography but followed every detail concerning camera position, angle, editing process and sound recording." Kelucharan's wife Laxmipriya also acted in quite a few films, though dancing is never mentioned.

Maa (or "Ma," Odia 1958, prod: Gour Ghosh) - This was Kelucharan's first composition for films, and he composed a Kela Keluni folk dance with two Bengali dancers. His wife Laxmipriya was the film's heroine! The image I've listed is not from the film but is a photo of Kelucharan performing the Kela Keluni dance with his wife Laxmipriya and Jayanti Ghosh—I love Kelucharan's smile. Starting in 1957, the Kala Vikash Kendra, aided by funding from the central Sangeet Natak Akademi, sponsored trips to the tribal areas of Odisha to study and record the tribal and folk dances of Orissa of which Kela Keluni was a part.

Mahalakshmi Puja (or "Shree Shree Mahalaxmi Puja," 1959, prod: Krushna Chandra Tripathy) - Kelucharan's second foray into film choreography, he composed a Dashavatara dance composed on screen for Sanjukta Panigrahi and Jayanti [Ghosh]. It must have been the same as the famous 1947 Dashavatar number that Kelucharan and Laxmipriya performed in Annapurna Theaters (and pictured earlier in this post). The dance is said to have remained practically the same even today, so it would be fascinating to compare. But most fascinating of all would be seeing the recorded moving image in 1959 of Sanjukta and Jayanti who were both important figures in Odissi dance.

Manika Jodi (1964) - Kelucharan choreographed a folk number that was performed by Guru Mayadhar Rout (one of the four architects of Odissi dance) and Urvashi Joshi. 

Malla Janha (1965) - Considered the "first new wave cinema in Oriya," this award-winning film credits Kelucharan for the choreography and his wife Laxmipriya is among the cast. The only dance number in the film is this simple group folk dance by young women.

Nirjana Saikate (1963, Bengali, Dir: Tapan Sinha) - I am so thrilled to have found the song below—this dance has never been seen before on this blog! The dancer is Minati Mishra who was among the first batch of girls who started learning Odissi, and she is performing a Kalyani Pallavi choreographed by Kelucharan Mohapatra for the film. It's an interesting visual record of Odissi almost 10 years before it was documented in the Films Division production Odissi Dance. This is the only Bengali film on the list, but the dance is presented so authentically it had to be included. While Illeana claims in her book that director Tapan Sinha asked Kelucharan to direct the dance after Tapan saw the dance rehearsals of Kelu and Minati for Arundhati, Arundhati was released four years after Nirjana Saikate! The relatively static and elevated way the dance is filmed reminds me a lot of Roshan Kumari's Kathak dance as captured by Satyajit Ray in Jalsaghar.

Start :17

Arundhati (1967/8) - I posted about these dances previously, but I didn't know until my research for this post that the exquisite dances by a 30-year-old Minati Mishra were all composed by Kelucharan Mohapatra! This national award-winning film is an example of a "dance film" in Odisha because its plot surrounds a woman, Arundhati (Minati), who belongs to an Odissi dance troupe that tours the country.

"Namami Bighnaraj" - Minati Mishra performs on a small stage with musicians perched on each side. On the wall behind her is the iconic image of the chariot wheel as seen on the famous Konark Sun Temple. The first half of the dance is slow paced and statuesque, and the second half of the dance increases speed to show off some nice pure dance to the spoken rhythmic syllables. 

"Debhika Para Aasare" - This creatively-choreographed group dance begins with the dancers entering the stage in a stylized walk and salutation, both elements of the introductory piece in Odissi, the Mangalacharan or Ganesh Vandana. The raised and angled camera position highlights the formations of the dancers. Based on the plot description, the man who runs up to the stage at the end then proclaims his love for her much to her surprise and much to the shock of her boyfriend.

"Abhimanini" or "Mana Teji Aaji Saaje Maanini"- Minati Mishra also learned Bharatanatyam in addition to Odissi, and this number shows off her skills in both forms though Bharatanatyam heavily predominates after the 1:32 mark. Kelucharan composed all the dances in the film, so I imagine for this number he and Minati worked closely together to design the beautiful choreography. Minati is such a talented dancer with great form. The ending portion where she dances down her stair descent is thrilling! This song remains one of my most favorite film dances in Indian cinema.

"Shyama Gale Madhupure" - I have no doubts that Kelucharan also composed this folk number given his exposure to folk and tribal dances throughout his life and their being part of theater dance presentations and the early years of Kala Vikash Kendra. The way the group splits and interacts with one another is nicely designed.

Krushna Sudama (1976) - Kelucharan composed an Odissi group dance.

Tai Poi (or "Ta Poi," 1977) - Kelucharan choreographed a folk dance for this film. Might it be this one? 

Sri Krishna Rasa Leela (1979, prod: Komal Lochana Mohanty) - Kelucharan and chief assistant choreographer Gangadhar Pradhan (well known Odissi guru) composed group Odissi dances for this film.

Ramayana (1980) - "Dia Dia Mangala Hula Huli He Rama Hoibe Rajaa" - I am generally not a fan of the often tacky dances seen in mythological films from the 1960s onward, but this group dance in Ramayana is delightful because Odissi-inspired movements are ingeniously woven into it. Odiamoviedatabase credits Kelucharan as the choreographer (and I trust their credits given that they give the source, in this case the book "Odia Chalachitra Ra Agyat Adhyaya" by Bhim Singh). In the song, the seated king the women dance for is played by Uttam Mohanty who seems to have been as popular to Odia cinema as MGR and NTR were to Tamil and Telugu cinema. I am not very knowledgeable about the innovations Kelucharan brought to Odissi in his usage of space and patterns, but I imagine this dance showcases some of his creativity.

Jayadev (1987, prod: Sachikanta Rout) - Contains an Ashtapadi dance choreographed by Kelucharan. One of the songs in the film is "Rati Sukha Sare" of which there is video of him performing outside of film on the stage and which may have been his original composition. Film image from odiamoviedatabase.

Boitha Bandana (Unknown) - Kelucharan choreographed a Geeta Natya dance. I am unable to find any identifying information for the film.

Other Odissi Dances in Odia Cinema

• Sri Jagannath (1950) - This film established debutante Gloria Mohanty "as a leading actress who was quite adept in dancing, acting and horse riding." Given that Gloria learned Odissi under Kelucharan Mohapatra, I imagine she danced "Odissi" in the film though the dance director is unknown. Gloria was a prolific stage actress who was introduced to theater by Kalicharan Pattnaik, and she acted in many Odian films including many noted in this post (Srjan).
• Kedar Gouri (1954) - Given that both Sanyukta (Sanjukta) Panigrahi and Gloria Mohanty are listed in the cast, it is assumed that at least Sanjukta danced and perhaps the two danced together! While the dance director is unknown, there's a good possibility it was Kelucharan.
• Matira Manisha (1966) - Produced by Babulal Doshi and directed by Mrinal Sen, this film is said to have featured a 10-year-old Aloka Kanungo before she learned Odissi from Kelucharan Mohapatra; perhaps she was just a child actress, but might she have performed a dance?
• Adina Megha (1970) - Produced by Babulal Joshi, this film credits Guru Ramani Ranjan Jena as the dance director.
• Sansar (1973) - Guru Ramani Ranjan Jena was the dance director. This is among the films screened in Odisha today so I know there's a copy somewhere!
• Kanakalata (1974) - Guru Ramani Ranjan Jena was the dance director.
• Sesa Sravana (or Sesha Srabhana, 1976) - Guru Ramani Ranjan Jena was the dance director
• Priyatama (1978) - Gangadhar Pradhan was the choreographer.
• Chhamana Athaguntha (1986) - Guru Ramani Ranjan Jena was the dance director.
• Baje Bainshi Nache Ghungura (1986) - The Hindu claims that Sangeeta Dash performed Odissi dance in the film, and odiamoviedatabase confirms her in the cast. I had posted previously that Kelucharan directed the film but I'm not able to find any mention of his film or dance direction in any of my sources. Sangeeta Dash was a talented Odissi dancer born in the 1960s who learned under Guru Deba Prasad Das in his unique style.
• Badhu Nirupama (1987) - Sangeeta Das was in the cast and likely performed a dance.

Odissi Dance in Recent Odia Films

So how does Odissi dance fare in Odia cinema today? Of the examples I found below, none are impressive. I find the filmi music and exaggerated emoting at odds with the graceful movements inspired directly from Odissi! I can't stop watching the dances to see how the Odissi choreography is utilized, but ultimately they are fluffy numbers that don't invite a repeat watch! I'm sure there are others in recent films that I'm not aware of. Anyone have other suggestions?

Akase Ki Ranga Lagila (2009) - "Kanhei Kanhei"- Archita Sahu, an Odia actress and Odissi dancer, performs an Odissi dance in the film in a setting of artistically lit dance sculptures. The emoting is filmy and the choreography is not pure Odissi, but Sahu's grace makes for a decent number. Certainly something you would not see in other-language films in India!

Start 3:12

Thukul(2012) - "Saathire" - Archita Sahu danced again in last year's film Thukul which portrayed the romantic struggles of an Odissi dancer Tithi (Sahu) and a singer, and as you can imagine it contained lots of Odissi dance in multiple songs, practice scenes, and even over the introductory credits. But the group dances are presented in a filmy-pop way—the sets are gaudy, the music has a retro synth flavor, and the Odissi dancers look completely out of place. The choreographer of the film was the talented Odissi dancer Meera Das. Don't miss the part where the dancer drags herself in misery in a shallow pool of water! I have a feeling the songs in Thukul are just what we can expect of Shilpa Shetty's "Odissi" in the unreleased film The Desire: Journey of a Woman.

Thukul (2012) - "Gacharu Jhadile Patra" - Wow, the choreography of the men in this cheesy song is bad! The Odissi dancers appear at :24 and I have no idea why they are included in the song. Hard to sit through this one!

An interesting film said to be in the works is "Kalpana," an Odia movie to be based on Odissi dance and helmed by Odissi dancer Saswat Joshi. But considering the false rumors of Joshi teaching Deepika Padukone Odissi for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's recently released film Ram Leela, until Kalpana releases I won't get my hopes up.

A Final Plea...and Coming Up Next!

Again, if anyone knows where any of the above films might be found, please let me know! Such rich treasures in the history of Odissi dance deserve to be brought to light. Coming up soon, I plan to post about Odissi dances in non-Odia films including a new one I recently discovered that is delightful!

Sources 

1. Banerji, Anurima. Odissi Dance: Paratopic Performances of Gender, State, and Nation. PhD Diss.
2. Chakra, Shyamhari. "Odia Cinema at Seventy-Five". Routledge Handbook of Indian Cinemas.
3. Coorlawala, Uttara Asha. "Review: The Classical Traditions of Odissi and Manipuri." Dance Chronicle. 1993.
4. Chatterjee, Ananya. "Contestations: Constructing a Historical Narrative for Odissi." Rethinking Dance History: A Reader. 2004.
5. Chhotaray, Sharmila. "Narratives of Regional Identity: Revisiting Modern Oriya Theatre from 1880-1980." Lokaratna.
6. Citaristi, Ileana. The Making of a Guru: Kelucharan Mohapatra His Life and Times. 2001. (peppered with cinema connections culminating in a detailed list on pages 144-146 of all the films Kelucharan choreographed for!)
7. Dennen, David. "The Naming of 'Odissi': Changing Conceptions of Music in Odisha." Ravenshaw Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies. 2013. (draft can be read here).
8. Evergreen State College Odissi Dance website
9. Gauhar, Ranjana. Odissi: The Dance Divine. 2007.
10. Gour, Santosh. "Odia Cinema and Odias in Cinema." Directorate of Film Festivals website.
11. Kala Vikash Kendra website. 
12. Khokar, Ashish Mohan. "Guru Pankaj Charan Das: Fountainhead of Odissi." Narthaki.com
13. Khokar, Ashish Mohan. "Guru Mayadhar Raut." Narthaki.com
14. Khokar, Ashish Mohan. "Guru Deba Prasad Das: Guru of Global Odissi." Narthaki.com
15. Lopez y Royo, Alessandra. "Guru Surendranath Jena: Subverting the Reconstituted the Odissi Canon."Dance Matters: Performing India. 2010.
16. Mohanty Hejmadi, Priyambada and Ahalya Hejmadi Patnaik. Odissi: An Indian Classical Dance Form. 2007.
17. Odiamoviedatabase.wordpress.com (I trust their credits given that they usually state the source of the information, often Odia Chalachitra Ra Agyat Adhyaya by Bhim Singh)
18. Roy, Ratna. Neo Classical Odissi Dance. 2009.
19. Sikand, Nandini. "Beyond Tradition: The Practice of Sadhana in Odissi Dance." Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices. 2012.
20. Srjan - Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Odissi Nrityabasa, including page on Guru Ramani Ranjan Jena and article "Odissi Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra" at Narthaki.com
21. Varley, Julia. "Sanjukta Panigrahi: Dancer for the Gods." New Theatre Quarterly. 1998.
22. Venkataraman, Leela and Avinash Pasricha. Indian Classical Dance: Tradition in Transition. 2002.

(Note: I did not make many specific references in this post other than for direct quotes because they would overwhelm the text and often were gathered and cross checked from multiple sources. If anyone is interested in where I got a certain piece of information, please contact me and I'm happy to provide the specific reference.)

Related Posts

• Full Length Bhavantarana [film on Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra] is Now Up
• Upcoming Documentary: Odissi - From the Temples to the Contemporary Stage
• The Nrityagram Dance Ensemble in Utah!

Odissi Dance in Indian Cinema Outside Odisha

December 7, 2013, 1:18 pm

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Continuing on from last week's post about Odissi dance in Odia films, here I want to highlight the usage of Odissi in films outside of Odisha. Like other classical dance forms beyond the ubiquitous Kathak and Bharatanatyam, Odissi is rarely seen in non-Odian films. When it does appear in a significant way, it is usually tied to the setting of the film or a character having Odishan heritage. Below are five Indian films that featured Odissi in a significant way starting with my absolute favorite, Hamari Beti.

Hamari Beti (2006, Hindi) - I am thrilled to have discovered this film! In the same spirit as the films Mayuri/Nache Mayuri, Hamari Beti starred Sakti Swarupa Bir (aka Shakti Swaroop) and portrayed her real-life story as a girl in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, who was deaf and speech impaired but triumphantly rose above her challenges and became an Odissi dancer. National Award-winning Odia film director/cinematographer A.K. Bir directed, scripted, and photographed the film, and Telugu film producer D. Rama Naidu produced it. While the film seems to have only been screened at some film festivals and had a very limited commercial release, luckily for us the production company Suresh Productions has posted the entire film on their YouTube channel! Distributed throughout the film is nearly 15-minutes of Odissi dance, and to my delight nearly all of them are practice dances (my favorite!) done in cotton practice saris. The careful attention to the cinematography and sound design makes the dances a gorgeous watch.

Chittaranjan Acharya (aka Prachee Chitta Ranjan Acharya or C.R. Acharyya), Sakti's real life Odissi guru and inspiration, plays himself in the film and is credited for the film's choreography. Chittaranjan is "an engineer by profession and an Odissi dance exponent by passion" who learned Odissi from Pankaj Charan Das. He still performs Odissi today with his daughterAsmita Mahapatra or his troupe. Here he is in the film demonstrating Odissi for his students—a rare male Odissi film dance!

Start 31:43

In real life, Sakti had developed her speech and hearing disabilities when she was an infant. After seeing a seven-year-old Sakti imitate dancers she saw on the television at home, her father connected her with his work colleague Chittaranjan who found she was a "promising dancer" and agreed to take her as his student. Sakti learned the form by imitating the dance of Chittaranjan's daughter Asmita who was also learning Odissi from him, and when Sakti later performed on stage Chittaranjan would "play" the rhythm with his hands next to the stage. In the film, Asmita's role is played by Odissi dancer Dr. Prachi Mehta who has an expressive and cheerful face.

Here is a playlist of all the lovely practice scenes in the film that depict Sakti's learning of Odissi through observation only beginning with warm-up exercises and then Odissi dance movements. Halfway through video number 3 in the playlist is the adorable song "Ta Ta Ta, Li Li Li" with playful vocals by Shreya Ghoshal. The last video, number 7, is a performance of Sakti by the ocean in full Odissi costume. I found the film as a whole melodramatic and wanting of more development, but the dance sequences are lovingly portrayed and among my favorites! Fair warning that there may be a lot of advertisements even in playlist mode, unfortunately. Any troubles with the playlist? Try watching it on YouTube here.

Yugant (1995, Bengali) - A relationship drama, this sensitive film has a number of short, award-winning dances directed by Ileana Citaristi, an Italian woman who moved to India in the 70s and learned Odissi under the legendary guru Kelucharan Mohapatra (and she also recently made headlines with an unfortunate Rath Yatra incident). While many of the dances in the film are modern Odissi-Chhau inspirations, Rupa Ganguly performs two nice Odissi dance practice scenes as part of her character's career as an Odissi dancer, and in the first her male dance teacher performs as well (another rare male Odissi film dance!). Her romance is at a rocky place during the first scene below as evidenced by the very humorous "interruption". Citaristi once described Rupa as "not a dancer" requiring her to "compromise a lot in solo" choreography—but I think Rupa does a lovely job as a dancer practicing her art at home.

Swarna Kamalam (1988, Telugu) - American-born Odissi danseuse Sharon Lowen performs a surprising Odissi stage number in this film, which I wrote extensively about in this previous post.

Payal Ki Jhankaar (1980, Hindi) - "Kar Singar Aise Chalat Sundari" - I lovingly refer to this film dance as "Odissi on crack"! Dancers Komal Mahuvakar (aka Roopini) and Surinder Kaur seem intent on dancing Odissi-inspired choreography as fast as humanly possible. Because the film centers on a young woman who loves dance, it is filled with dances of varying filmy quality, and the deployment of "Odissi" for the ending competition is a curious choice! It's not authentic Odissi, but the girls are clearly talented dancers to be able to pull off such a speedy number. While the film credits only list Badri Prasad as the choreographer, an image of the press book also credits Ravindra Atibuddhi and Shankar Behera—which must refer to the mumbai-based Odissi Guru Shankar Behera! Komal also learned Odissi in real life along with Kathak and Kuchipudi, and as a fun tidbit, she founded the still-active nonprofit organization Sparsha.

Orissa (2013, Malayalam) - Set in rural Odisha, this film tells the tale of a girl, Suneyi, who narrowly avoids being forced to become a devadasi when a social activist places her under the protection of a Malayali police officer who later falls in love with her. Suneyi's older sister Chandrabhaga, played by actress Kaniha, had already become a devadasi and performs the dance below. It is so bad! Sooo bad! The dance has some movements that are inspired from Odissi, but the overall choreography and North Indian costuming and setting are confused. Kaniha is a terrible dancer who looks stiff, lifeless, and hunchbacked (and is just as bad in this Bollywood-style dance number)—she kind of reminds me of poor Tabu who tried to dance a vaguely-classical number in Thakshak. What were the makers of Orissa thinking! Such a wasted opportunity to showcase some Odissi or Odissi fusion. At least the cinematography is sparkling...

Start 1:03

Of course, there is also Minati Mishra's Odissi dance number in the Bengali film Nirjana Saikate (1963) that I featured in last week's post. I was surprised I couldn't find more examples of Odissi dance in Bengali films given West Bengal's proximity to Odisha. Surely more are out there waiting to be discovered!

There are a few other films that have short and fleeting glimpses or inspirations of Odissi dance, such as "Thappatlo Thalalo" in Subhapradham, No. 78 Shanti Nivasa, the late Rituparno Ghosh's Chitrangada (Sharmila Biswas taught Rituparno Odissi for the film), Mira Nair's Kama Sutra (choreographed by Odissi dancer Debi Basu)...and even Michael Jackson's music video for "Black or White." And I'm still waiting for video of the Odissi dances in The Desire - Journey of a Woman (Hindi) to surface!


Further reading about Hamari Beti:

• Sakti Swarup Bir's Facebook Page - Includes this collection of press articles about her and the film.
• Chakra, Shyamhari. Impossible is Nothing: Sakti Swarupa Bir Overcomes Her Shortcomings with Her Talent. The Hindu.

Film Classical Dances of Shobana

December 17, 2013, 7:58 pm

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Shobana, the well-known Bharatanatyam dancer and film actress/dancer, was my first film dance love alongside the equally luminous Bhanupriya. Until now I have posted very little about her, the subject of my blog avatar image, because other than her excellent dances in Manichitrathazhu and Dance Like a Man I had not been able to find any other proper film classical dances in her filmography. There were lots of pseudo-classical dances and numbers that tried to evoke classical imagery like those in Rudraveena, Dhwani, and April 18. It seemed hard to believe given how talented of a dancer she was, and I knew there had to be some hardcore practice and stage numbers hiding out there somewhere.

I was so excited when Richard at his Dances on the Footpath blog found Shobana's Bharatanatyam numbers in Mahamayee, and thanks to the huge uptick recently in the number of Malayalam films and songs posted online I was able to find this week two Malayalam films with classical dances by Shobana that I have never seen before (and I venture to guess neither have most of my readers!). Huge thanks are due to Youtuber Iqnatusm who has uploaded a lot of rare dances from Malayalam cinema.

SHO-bana (not "Sho-BANa" as my Malayalee friend corrects me with exasperation) Chandrakumar was born in 1970 (not 1966 as some articles mistakenly claim) in Kerala to the brother of the famous "Travancore Sisters" Lalitha, Padmini, and Ragini. Her first film appearance was at age 9 in Mangalanayiki (Tamil, 1980) but she describes in an interview her true debut film as a lead as April 18 (Malayalam, 1984). But Bhakta Dhruva Markandeya (Telugu, 1982), a children's mythological film starring an all child/teen cast, could be considered her first major role. I was delighted to find the film available on YouTube with English subtitles. Here is a 12-year-old Shobana as Queen Suneethi dancing a bit in a song with just-christened second wife Suruchi (at 13:48 is a brief Bharatanatyam-inspired move). The whole children/young teens acting such mature roles thing is a bit...creepy!

Start 12:14

Shobana learnt Bharatanatyam first from K.J. Sarasa and then extensively under Chitra Visweswaran before performing her debut arangetram in Chennai in 1984 (Sruti). She later learned a bit of the Bharata Nrityam style under Padma Subrahmanyam, and in recent years she has presented creative and imaginative choreographies based in classical idioms such as her production Maya Ravana (which you can watch in full here at Shemaroo's channel).

I find the film dance finds of Shobana below exciting because even though they all ultimately have a bit of filmy-gloss to them, the early dances serve as a visual archive of Shobana's abilities in the years of and immediately following her arangetram and before she was later recorded in the 1990s. The results are mixed ranging from barely mediocre to spectacular. I've read varying opinions about Shobana's real-life Bharatanatyam dance style. Her detractors criticize her lack of the deep half-seated araimandi position and other points of form and find a lack of completion in her movements. In films she often is dancing at such a fast pace that her form/completion is sometimes sacrificed. But her beauty and most of all her clearly evident joy in dancing makes her dances a fulfilling watch.

Enakkul Oruvan (1984, Tamil) - These are probably Shobana's earliest, proper Bharatanatyam-based film dances! I had no idea she danced in this film until recently when the whole film became available online. In the comedy scene below, she is practicing Bharatanatyam with her guru played by an actor who has no idea how to play the beats on the tattukazhi. Later on at 23:05, Shobana reappears in full dance costume in a similar comedy sequence where she poses for photographs with a disguised Kamal Hassan.

Start 13:07

Here Shobana gives a Bharatanatyam performance on stage with an admiring but soon-hallucinating Kamal Hassan looking on from the audience. I love the lines she makes with her long arms, but the number is overall uninspiring. In an interview, Shobana has said that she only 14 when she acted in this film (though she looks much older given her 5'8 height) and was understandably nervous around superstar Hassan. Actress/dancer Sripriya also performs a Bharatanatyam number in the film, but she is no Shobana! Unfortunately, the film was a dud and led Shobana to return to Malayalam cinema where she gained fame and acclaim.

Ee Thanalil Ithiri Neram (1985, Malayalam) - Another stage Bharatanatyam performance, but this time her form is quite awkward at times and she doesn't complete a lot of her movements which seem rushed. Parts of the dance are a mess! As I was taking screencaps the awkwardness became really evident—here's a few that catch even the untrained eye as looking ungainly, and then watch the dance below:

Udayam Padinjaaru (1986, Malayalam) - A graceful Mohiniattam-inspired temple dance by Shobana! While Shobana's mainstay has always been Bharatanatyam, she also learned Mohiniattam and Odissi. I'm surprised there are not more Mohiniattam numbers in her films given how prolific she was in Malayalam cinema. The way the fan is draped to the side on her hip is an interesting choice, and the music has a languid Kerala flavor. Such a beautiful dance! So happy to have found this rare gem.

Mahamayee (1991, Tamil) - This is one of those films that never shows up in Shobana's filmographies online and makes me wonder what other film dances of hers are out there undiscovered. Had the uploaders not attached Shobana's name to it I doubt it would have been found! Shobana and Sridhar play the leads two years before they danced together in Manichitrathazhu. Shobana plays an orphan who is cared for by Somayajulu (who has played similar roles in many films, perhaps most famously in Sankarabharanam) and protected by the temple cobra who doesn't like her pending marriage to Sridhar's character.

Here is Shobana's Bharatanatyam practice scene (she appears at :14) with her nattuvanar. It's a "filmy" practice scene that presents lots of easily-digestible, brief snippets of "classicalisms" for the audience, but luckily for us there are enough extended adavus to make for an interesting and colorful watch. Once again the playing of the wooden tattu kazhi doesn't match the striking sounds at all! This is almost as bad as the abundant faux-veena playing in South Indian cinema. :)

Shobana's dance on the temple premises is all sharp geometry, speed, and form and is my favorite film dance of hers. The choreography is filled with markers of Kuchipudi dance and was composed, according to the credits, by P.V. Seshu (thanks Ragothaman for the translation!). Seshu, also credited elsewhere as V. Seshu Parupalli, choreographed some of the most beloved Kuchipudi in Telugu films like that in Sankarabharanam, Saptapadi, Ananda Bhairavi, and partly for Sagara Sangamam. At 3:21 the snake appears (it has a name—Nageswari—according to the credits!) and Shobana's movements get more fiercely cobra-like. I see so much of Padmini in Shobana's abhinaya and snake dance portions. Shobana also has a tandava dance in this song.

Manichitrathazhu (1993, Malayalam) - Without a doubt Shobana's most well-known classical dance in films, this number was danced and choreographed by Shobana and male dancer Sridhar themselves. Sridhar was a talented dancer who performed a number of rare male classical dances in cinema. The editing makes the reality/dream segments flow effortlessly, and Shobana/Sridhar's lightfooted, effortless choreography is creatively extracted from Bharatanataym and matches perfectly with the music. A timeless number that can never be matched.

Start 1:44

Dance Like a Man (2003/4, English) - I just discovered this movie can be viewed in full online for free at the NFDC's "Cinemas of India"webpage here! Finally! While Rama Vaidyanathan trained and choreographed Anoushka Shankar in the film, Shobana choreographed her own dance numbers. The music of Ganesh-Kumaresh finds a perfect echo in her practice dance on the veranda which has that raw sense of abandon that makes practice dances my favorite. Fun tip: the male nattuvanar seen at 2:24 is the late U.S. Krishna Rao!

I am still in awe of Shobana's choreography here as she frolics through aesthetically-pleasing extensions and sharp pauses. Given Arif Zakaria's terrible dance skills in the video above, it's probably a blessing that he only had to stand completely still as a meditating sage in this dance!

Last, here is a fairly recent commercial (for paint!) starring Shobana as a classical dance teacher.

To close, here are some lovely screencaps from Shobana's classical film dances:

Film Dances of Gopi Krishna - Including Three Little-Known Videos

January 5, 2014, 12:57 pm

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The late Kathak dancer Gopi Krishna (≈1933-38 to 1994) is perhaps best remembered for his dances in the 1955 Hindi film Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje. His dances in that film exemplified his trademark—his lightning-fast, signature version of kathak chakkar pirouettes! His film dances were much more acrobatic freeform furor than classical Kathak but nevertheless electrifying with the unbridled energy that coursed through a flurry of rotations, backbends and whiplash-fast movements. Gopi Krishna’s style of wild, joyous abandon is unlike anything I've seen and there has never been a male dancer in Indian films that has come close to matching it. In this post, I want to focus on his film dances, including three relatively rare songs that don't seem to be widely known, and also give some background information on his style, life, and legacy.

While Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje is filled with Gopi's dances such as his infamous introductory pirouette-pillar dance and his energetic tandava with Sandhya, highlighted here is the "Kathak" dance competition in the film:

Chaube Maharaj5

It is well known that Gopi Krishna is the nephew of famous Kathak and film dancer Sitara Devi. But I was surprised to learn in Sunil Kothari's book on Kathak⁵ that the dancer Gopi competes against in the video above is Chaube Maharaj—Sitara's brother and therefore Gopi's uncle! Kothari notes that Sukhdev Maharaj, a "court musician in Nepal [...] took a bold step in training his two daughters Alaknanda and Sitara, two sons Chaube and Pande as dancers and another daughter Tara as a musician." Tara Devi was Gopi Krishna's mother and also a famous thumri singer¹⁰. Chaube Maharaj can also be seen playing some fierce tabla in Gopi's introductory pillar dance, and he seems to have stayed active in Kathak dance and music through his life. Sitara Devi adopted Chaube's daughters Jayantimala and Priyamala and trained them in her "fiery and energetic" style of Kathak⁵.

Gopi's Little-Known Film Dances

Aandhiyan (1952, Hindi) - Available writings and biographical entries about Gopi Krishna say his first association with cinema was choreographing for Madhubala in Saqi (1952), and they imply that he debuted on camera with his dancer-actor role in Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje (1955). While most of us Gopi Krishna fans know that he danced with Roshan Kumari before that in 1953's Parineeta, I was surprised to find the dance below from Aandhiyan completely by accident. It's very possible that this was his first film dance or at least the earliest surviving one. As you can see from the screencap to the left, he directed his dance himself, and in the scene prior to the dance you can hear the announcer say his real name, "Gopi"! Gopi's signature spins and back-leans are showcased in the clip which is much too short and appears to be from a damaged or hastily edited print. There is another even shorter glimpse of what appears to be the same dance scene here. Shame that we are unable to see the full number as it was likely originally filmed!

Start 9:33

Unknown Film and Song Mane Thumbida Hennu (1958, Kannada) - I found this one by randomly searching YouTube for DancingIndia ripoff clips (which I scathingly humored in this post) and was stunned to see Gopi Krishna perform his best Bharatanatyam/Kuchipudi-inspired dance on film with E.V. Saroja. It is so surprising to see him dance like this! Gopi is said to have trained in Bharatanatyam from Mahalingam Pillai and Govind Raj Pillai, but I figured it was just cursory given the filmy nature of his other "Bharatanatyam"-based film dances. The dances below are a fascinating glimpse of his Bharatanatyam style which is infused with his effortless energy. It's my favorite film dance of his! I would love to see him in a proper full-length stage Bharatanatyam piece and wish there was footage available! Edit: Thanks to Ragothaman and Gaddeswarup for translating the Kannada text.

Here he is in the first half of the song, first from :07-:29 and then from 2:15 to the end.

And in the second half of the song, he enters at 1:01, and then at 1:52 he transitions to the Kathak-inspired style that he is most comfortable with. He has such force and presence in his movements!

Start 1:01

The Perfect Murder (1988, English) - When I learned that Gopi was credited as a “dance instructor” in this Merchant Ivory film, I had to check it out. Turns out he gets substantial coverage in a film-heroine dance teaching scene (he appears briefly at :19 and then extended at 2:03 with a closeup at 2:48). His love for dance still shows through all those years later despite his weight gain and apparent poor health. Sadly, he died 6 years later in 1994 of a heart attack¹⁰.

Gopi Krishna's Other Film Dances

Naach Ghar (Osianama)

Instead of embedding a ton of videos, I've placed every other known (to me) film dance of Gopi Krishna's into the playlist below ordered with my favorites up first.You'll notice in Gopi's dance duets that he is usually paired with a female dancer who can keep up with him and possesses a similar in-born joy to her dance—Helen lookalike Madhumati, Vyjayanthimala, Kamala, Priyadarshini, Helen herself, and Roshan Kumari. Only one dance of his exists with Kamala, but I found the poster from 1959's Naach Ghar (left) at the Osianama archive which shows that he danced with Kamala in the film. Unfortunately no videos or prints seem to be commercially available. There are a couple dances not on YouTube that are not in the playlist: the Kathak training scene in JJPB and his dance with E.V. Saroja in Bhakta Jaya Deva. And the three dances from above in this post are also included in the playlist for those who access it directly from YouTube.

More About Gopi Krishna

Gopi Krishna was a prolific choreographer in Indian cinema—one article claimed the number of films surpassed 800⁴!. His compositions featured ecstatic movements, sharp transitions, ample spins, and an almost super-human pace with movements inspired by classical dances particularly Kathak. Vyjayanthimala's popular but not-very-authentic Bharatanatyam dances in Hindi films, such as Amrapali, Prince, Suraj, and Chhoti Si Mulaqat, were all his creations as were Sayee-Subbulakshmi's Kathak in Bharosa (1963), Sudha Chandran's dances in Nache Mayuri (1986), and Kamala's dances in Jwala (1971). IMDB has a list, but I only trust verifications through film credits.

While Gopi was often behind the camera, he danced in quite a few films and his style certainly had detractors in his day most vociferously for Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje (JJPB). Fellow choreographer Vinod Chopra wrote in 1958³ that the film"insulted a particular North Indian Classical Dance style—the Kathak, by presenting a distorted and plagiarized version of it." In 1983 Projesh Banerji¹ criticized Gopi's style citing a particular movement seen in JJPB: “The Kathak exponents of today, in order to get cheap applause from the spectators, very often indulge in practicing stunts and flashy climaxes on the sum. Gopi Krishna followed by his disciples, like Habiba Rahman, who has recently joined the film-world, and others are warmly clapped when they glide and slip on the floor dragging the body to a great distance on the stage, with their clap-trap tactics, to the detriment of the traditional rudiments of the classicality of Kathak.” Reviews of JJPB from recent years have been more gentle and even praiseworthy. A review at The Hindu⁶ called the dances in the film "blended Kathak" that merit " the epithet filmi," while Upperstall rosily recalls the film as "a series of sparkling vignettes and gorgeous ensembles of Kathak, Bharatnatyam and Manipuri..." (Bharatanatyam? Ha!)

Not all of the film producers were happy with his particular style. While Gopi is listed as one of the choreographers for Umrao Jaan (1981), he only composed for one dance because the producers "were dissatisfied with [Gopi's] work after he composed the first number and wanted something more authentic" and soon hired the talented Kathak dancer Kumudini Lakhia⁸.

Gopi Krishna1

I have long wondered what Gopi Krishna danced like on the stage outside of films and if he was considered a good Kathak dancer. In books written about Indian dance during his lifetime, he is often mentioned but the focus is usually brief with an emphasis on his work in films and the flashy and energetic aspects of his style. But it's hard to find any details about his style in classical Kathak, and I have found that most published writings about Gopi (which frequently misspell his name as Krishan or Kishan) tend to copy information from each other leaving the original source unclear. Projesh Banerji claimed Gopi was "the first to divide the continuous Kathak style repertoire into distinctive items, which practice is now followed by other exponents of Kathak"². Sunil Kothari's book on Kathak does dedicate a page to Gopi along with many other exponents, but the description on Gopi's page is brief and focuses on his past film choreography, stamina, energy, and "virile and vigorous" movements with "a lot of bravado, bravura and showmanship." A tribute article written about Gopi in 1994 noted that "he established himself in the Banaras gharana of Kathak dance" but gave no other details other than noting that Gopi performed around the world. Gopi received honorary titles and apparently was awarded a Padma Shri award in 1975, but I've not been able to find information on the details and rationale.

Gopi Krishna and Sukhdev Maharaj, 1950 (Source)

Gopi Krishna's family lineage in the lesser-appreciated Banaras Gharana of Kathak is usually mentioned in writings about him, but I have had the hardest time understanding what "Banaras Gharana" is being referred to. Sitara Devi claims the Baranas Gharana was began by her father⁷, Sukhdev Maharaj, whom other sources describe as being "determined to carry forward his family's 400-year-old legacy of Kathak"⁹ and moving to Benaras where he created new innovations. But most other writings about Kathak history say that the Banaras Gharana originated from Janaki Prasad and eventually shifted to Lahore after partition with its most significant exponents being Pandit Gopal/Gopal Das, Ashiq Hussain (also a film star), Hazari Lal, Gopal’s son Krishna Kumar, and Sunayana Hazarilal. The question remains: is the Banaras Gharana of Gopi Krishna and Sitara Devi's family the same as the Janaki Prasad Gharana, but the two branches split based on location, Banaras vs. Lahore?

Regarding video footage of Gopi Krishna dancing outside of films, I've only found two examples. One is of him performing footwork, and the other, embedded below, is a clip from the Doordarshan VCD Kathak showing Gopi perform Kathak accompanied by Birju Maharaj on the tabla. Where is Gopi’s rubber spine and joyous energy? He looks tired, ragged, and stiff. Why did the Doordarshan folks include the clip in their compilation! Was he having a bad day when it was recorded? I would have assumed he had health problems but as shown in the playlist above he was dancing energetically in 1985's Zamana.

Gopi enters at :59

There is a Hindi documentary on YouTube about Gopi Krishna's life called "Gopi Krishna Living Legend" (Part 1, Part 2) from the Anmol Ratan (Priceless Gem) TV series. After having a friend translate the Hindi for me, I learned that when V. Shantaram was looking for a hero for his next film, it was Kathak dancer Roshan Kumari's father who recommended Gopi's name to Shantaram. Gopi's life was difficult and full of struggle—he lived on the Bombay streets while eking out a living for quite some time when his aunt threw him out of the house after JJPB was released. Near the end of the documentary, Gopi comments with disbelief that a "street dancer from Calcutta has reached such a high state."

The dance school that Gopi established in the 70s, the Nateshwar Nritya Kala Mandir, is now headed by Rajendra Chaturvedi who organizes various annual dance shows in memory of Gopi whom he describes as having a "unique style." In a fitting legacy to Gopi's prolific work in popular cinema, Chaturvedi calls himself an "authorized Bollywood choreographer as well as an authentic teacher of Kathak in the pure classical style of the Banaras Gharana (Gopi Krishna and Sitara Devi style)." The disciples Chaturvedi chose to proudly mention include "well known personalities" like Kangana Ranaut and Jiah Khan, of all people! Another student of Gopi's is Vaibhav Joshi who says he studied Kathak from Gopi in a traditional guru-shishya parampara relationship.

It seems that Gopi married a Kathak dancer named Savitri at age 19⁴ and in the 1980s had a daughter, Shampa Gopi Krishna (Sonthalia), who is currently following in her father's footsteps with film choreography in dance reality shows and films.

In the end, while I'm still unclear what Gopi's Kathak skills were really like, he certainly popularized "classical dance" through his work in films where he seemed most comfortable and perhaps best able to express his creativity and boundless energy. And luckily for us, the film medium preserved his joyous work for us to enjoy all these many years later.

Sources:
1. Banerji, Projesh. Kathak Dance Through Ages. 1983.
2. Banerji, Projesh. Dance in Thumri. 1986.
3. Chopra, Vinod. "Dance in Films." Sangeet Natak Akadami Dance Seminar 1958.
4. "Film Industry has lost its Kohinoor." Times of India. 1994.
5. Kothari, Sunil. Kathak: Indian Classical Dance Art. 1989.
6. Rajan, Anjana. "Blast from the Past: Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje." The Hindu. 2010.
7. Rajan, Anjana. "State of the Art."The Hindu. 2009.
8.Shah, Reena. Movement in Stills: The Dance and Life of Kumudini Lakhia. 2006.
9. Sharma, Purnima. "Still Dancing with Her Eyes." The Times of India, The Crest Edition. 2011.
10. Sruti. Issue 115 Page 51. 1994.

Related Posts:
Gopi Krishna's Tandav Dance: Bhookailas vs. Bhookailasa

Film Dances of L. Vijayalakshmi

January 12, 2014, 1:33 pm

≫ Next: Zohra Segal's Shankar-Style Choreography in Neecha Nagar (Hindi, 1946)

≪ Previous: Film Dances of Gopi Krishna - Including Three Little-Known Videos

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L. Vijayalakshmi—the cute-as-a-button, dimple-faced dancer who danced and acted most prolifically in 1960s Telugu cinema—is a dancer that I've not featured much on this blog to date. For a long time I didn't like her classical film dances. They were too filmy faux-classical and she had a habit of lunging her upper body forward in jumps. But as more films and songs have become available online, I've watched a wider range of her dancing (including her Western-style dances) and have come to admire a few. I've even found a new, early dance of hers. In my usual style, I will feature my favorite dances of hers, a playlist of all of her known dances, and note some information about her life—including surprising details about her current work today!

L. Vijayalakshmi's Film Dances

Neethipathi (1955, Tamil) - "Ananthame Anantham" - This is L. Vijayalakshmi's earliest film dance that I'm aware of, and for that it gets listed first on the list. She is on the right paired with a young and adorable E.V. Saroja in the twin-dance format that became wildly popular after Sayee-Subbulakshmi popularized it in Rathakaneer and Malaikkalan the year previous.

Renukadevi Mahatyam (1960, Telugu) - This is the dance I'm most excited to feature! Filmed a few years after Neethipathi above, Vijayalakshmi still looks very young here. The choreography aims for sharp form and geometrical lines in the pure dance movements—characteristics that softened into a more filmy hybrid style in later years. Notice her ankle bells (gajjalu in Telugu) at 12:16 and the way the elongated bells hang downward. It's unfortunate the print jump cuts through material at times, but at least the visual quality is quite crisp!

Start 10:49

Kuravanji (1960, Tamil) - "Senghkaiyil Vandu Kalin" - After a "faux-classical" beginning, Vijayalakshmi and another unknown dancer (perhaps Priyadarshini, who danced with Gopi Krishna in Sampoorna Ramayanan?) perform choreography in such energetic sync that it nearly rivals the level of Sayee-Subbulakshmi. Watch the rhythmic segment starting at 1:30! Half-way through the song switches to feature Savitri and at 3:43 brings the dancing duo back for a folk dance.

Narthanasala (1963, Telugu) - "Jaya Gananayaka" - Choreographed by Vempati Pedda Satyam (relative of the late Kuchipudi legend Vempati Chinna Satyam), this dance is filled with clear markers of Kuchipudi dance albeit in their film version. Scholar Rumya Sree Putcha, whose work I will cover in a future post, argues that "Until Nartanasala, Kuchipudi movements rarely appeared on a woman's body, and certainly not on a courtesan body" because Kuchipudi gurus generally utilized Bharatanatyam vocabulary when depicting courtesan and shringara-oriented dance in films. Putcha notes that in "Jaya Gananayaka," we see "Pedda Satyam's aesthetic and what is identifiable today as the Kuchipudi style appear for the first time [in Telugu films] on a solo, female dancer's body" in a setting that is "carefully-framed" as a purely pedagogical interaction between a student and her guru framed by a large Nataraja statue in the background.

The above dances are my favorites, but there are some other goodies in L. Vijayalaxmi's filmography in the playlist below: the Vanjikottai Valiban-inspired dance off in Paramanandayya Sishyula Katha (1966, Telugu), the casual home dance in Bommai (1963, Tamil), the javali in Pooja Phalam (1964, Telugu) which Vijayalakshmi called her "true favorite" dance, and the puppet dance with Nagesh (whom she called"the best dancer the industry has produced") in Kaakkum Karangal. Vijayalakshmi also did a lot of Western-style dances which can be seen throughout the second half of the playlist. I know there are more dances of hers out there like those in Sri Krishna Avatharam and Satya Harishchandra (1965). Send any suggestions my way!

About L. Vijayalakshmi

The most informative article in English about "Viji" (as she was apparently lovingly called in her film days) that I've found is T.A. Narasimhan's at The Hindu which notes that Kumari Kamala "presided over her arangetram" in Bharathanatyam in Chennai. I've not been able to determine if she formally learned Kuchipudi (and from whom) or if it was something she was trained in by the Kuchipudi dance directors in her many Telugu films. There is a long article about her with lots of photos at this blog, but it is all in Telugu; anyone want to translate any interesting snippets?

After doing some searching based on the available information about her life, I learned that she is known today by her married name Vijayalakshmi De Datta (as evidenced in this interview of her husband) and that after marrying and leaving films in the late 1960s she earned a B.S. from Maderae University in 1985, a M.S. from the University of the Philippines in 1990, and another M.S. from Virginia Tech in the United States in 1994. I have been delighted to learn that Vijayalakshmi has worked as an accountant in higher education (I also work in higher ed!) in the United States ever since she moved here in 1991. It seems her last position at Virginia Tech was as the director of finance for Facilities Services, and her husband also worked at Virginia Tech as the associate vice president for international affairs and director of the Office of International Research, Education, and Development until 2011 when he retired. This means that Vijayalakshmi and her husband worked at Virginia Tech when it experienced the terrible mass shooting in 2007.

In the last few years, Vijayalakshmi and her family moved to California where her son Raj De Datta owns the company BloomReach. Vijayalakshmi currently works as a financial analyst in the Business Services department at UC Davis. Here she is on the UC Davis administration webpage:

What a lovely find, and quite amazing too given that she is probably in her 70s now! It's refreshing to be able to find some recent information about a dancer from classic South Indian films, especially since so many of them have passed on or are difficult to find information on. I'm happy to see that L. Vijayalakshmi seems to be on the minds of Telugu film lovers recently as evidenced by TV specials on her like the one by TV5 and recent interviews on YouTube. She certainly brightened Indian cinema with her charm and dance finesse.

Zohra Segal's Shankar-Style Choreography in Neecha Nagar (Hindi, 1946)

February 8, 2014, 1:52 pm

≫ Next: Found: Vyjayanthimala's Other Bharatanatyam Dance in Chittor Rani Padmini (1963, Tamil)!

≪ Previous: Film Dances of L. Vijayalakshmi

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For some time the only thing I knew about Zohra Segal was that she was an adorable elderly woman who had small roles in a lot of recent Hindi films. Then I learned that Zohra's life has been one of path-breaking excitement! From her burqa-clad beginnings in an orthodox Muslim family, she moved from one adventure to the next: training in Mary Wigman's famous modern dance school in Germany, dancing as a core member of Uday Shankar's troupe, marrying the Hindu Kameshwar Segal (aka Sehgal, Seghal, Saigal), choreographing dances for films and theatre, and finally acting, her greatest love, first on the stage with Prithviraj Kapoor's company and the IPTA and then later on the silver screen and television series such as The Jewel in the Crown.

Zohra w/ Ravi Shankar, Paris, 1937 (source)

Zohra's dance background and involvement with Uday Shankar's artistic legacy is fascinating and helps fill in some gaps in the data. After Shankar's wild success with Simkie in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he returned to India and added more Indians to his troupe including Zohra who became as prominent a dancer as Simkie. The period was fruitful with significant choreographies, touring, and finally the opening of Shankar's dance school in Almora in the late 1930s. Zohra's teaching and organizational skills learned in Germany proved influential in her role as the Almora school's main teacher and creator of the institution's syllabus [3]. But in the mid-1940s, Shankar's desire to devote all his energies towards making a dance film caused conflict with the long-time members like Simkie and Zohra [1]. Around this time Zohra left the dance school with fellow Almora dancer Kameshwar Segal whom she had married [3]. Due to internal conflict as well as external factors, the Almora dance school abruptly closed in 1944 and Shankar moved to Madras to begin making his dream production, Kalpana. 

After leaving Shankar's school and starting a short-lived Zohresh Dance Institute in Lahore, Zohra and her husband moved to Bombay and she choreographed for a small number of Hindi films. What inspired this post was my realization that Zohra was among a number of former associates of Uday Shankar who propagated his dance style in films. V.A.K. Ranga Rao, who considers Uday Shankar and the 1948 film Chandralekha as the two biggest influences on the development of dance in Indian cinema, notes that the students and employees of Shankar's Almora center "received the kind of allround training that was unthought of in [the] Indian dance world till then." Dancers like "Narendra Sharma, Sachin Shankar, Mohan Segal, Shanti Bardhan, Guru Dutt, Lakshmi Shankar and the couple Zohra and Kameshwar Segal who worked and learnt from him then in those halcyon days in Almora, became independent choreographers and most of them worked for films [spreading] the Uday Shankar turn of limb, taste of aesthetics around" not only in choreography but also in "make-up, costume, music, lighting, staging and showmanship."

Neecha Nagar credits

But Zohra is special because she showcased the Uday Shankar dance style in film two years before Kalpana was released. The film was Neecha Nagar(1946, Hindi), and her contribution was two beautiful dances (a "twin" and "trio" dance) with graceful side sways, undulations, arm positions, and hand gestures that look directly inspired by the Uday Shankar style as evidenced from extant footage of Kalpana. Could it be that Neecha Nagar is the earliest instance of Shankar's dance style in Indian cinema? And also an early example of the "twin dance" style? Take a look (and the woman seen resting her face on her hand? That's Zohra herself!):

Start 2:44

Start 4:53

Neecha Nagar is significant as the only Indian film to have won the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival (and nearly 10 years before Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali won a lesser prize at Cannes), although the opening title cards note that the dances were removed in the print sent to Cannes. Unfortunately the full print (with the dances) released in India was not a commercial success, and as Uday Bhatia notes in his excellent article, the "forgotten masterpiece" is hardly known "outside of academic circles" and "remains little more than a trivia question in the land of its origin."

Finding information about Zohra's choreography in films is difficult. In her memoir, she only talks about her film work in a general paragraph of disgust at the "debasement of art" she was asked to do in her film roles. Pages and pages are dedicated to her time at Prithvi Theatres and her association with the highly-influential Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA). What is perplexing is that she mentions the 1946 film Dharti ke Lal made entirely by IPTA members, but she does not mention Neecha Nagar released that same year which was not only also produced by the IPTA [2] but also contained her acting and dance choreography!

The best sources of information about Zohra's dance direction in films are C.S. Lakshmi's 2000 book Conversations with Women Dancers and daughter Kiran Segal's book about Zohra, Fatty. C.S. Lakshmi thoroughly interviewed Zohra about her dance background despite Zohra's surprise (exclaiming "of my fifty-five years in show biz, I have really been a professional dancer only at the beginning"). Here are some excerpts:

[Zohra] As the Zohresh Dance Institute in Lahore drew to a close,"...this beautiful sister of mine, Uzra Butt, who was already Prithviraj's leading lady contacted me at this time. Prithviraj Kapoor had just started a theatre, a year earlier. And my sister wrote and said, 'Why don't you come to Bombay and try your luck here, in films?' So, both my husband and I went to Bombay to try our luck as dancers. But the films there were so awful. The type of things I was expected to do--in one, the director came and said, 'Look there is a big bowl of roses and you come out of it in a bathing costume.' (Laughter) Uday Shankar's training was such that even parts of our body, our stomach or midriff, could not be seen. We had always worn churidar-pyjamas under our skirts. We didn't always cover the head. It depended on the type of dance, but his approach was very, very proper."
[C.S. Lakshmi]"For how many films did you do dance direction?"
[Zohra]"Well, not very many, about nine or ten in all. Baazi became a hit. Also for Nau Do Gyarah, C.I.D., Faraar, not this recent Faraar but another. Faraar made with Ashok Kumar, and Heer Ranjha. I have forgotten. It was so long ago."
[C.S. Lakshmi]"What was your experience of being a dance director in the male-dominated film world?"
[Zohra]"I didn't really like it. Not so much because it was male-dominated but because you had to, more or less, cater to what the director wanted except perhaps for Guru Dutt's films like Baazi. He had been my pupil in Almora when I was teaching. So he knew the technique of Uday Shankar and he liked it. That's why he asked me to come. So, I had no problem with him because he knew my style and he let me do whatever I wanted. But with other directors, you know, they had their own emphasis on the box-office and sex and it went against my grain and my upbringing..."

Kiran Segal's book Fatty sheds some light on the influence Zohra had on dance through her training of everyone associated with Prithvi Theatres. Kiran notes that students Suresh Bhatt and Satyanarayan later went on to give dance direction in films, and she also lists Badnam (directed by DD Keshav) as one of Zohra's film choreographies. Kiran also notes that the female dancers identified in the credits of Neecha Nagar, Ruma Ganguly (apparently the same person as Roma Ghosh, once married to Kishore Kumar) and Gopa Lal, were students of Zohra at Prithvi Theatres!

Film Credits Clockwise: Faraar/Dev Anand in Goa, CID, Baazi, and Nau Do Gyarah.

I was only able to find two other examples from Zohra's film choreography that feature the Uday Shankar-style influence: "Suno Gajar Kya Gaaye" from Baazi (1951) and "See Le Zubaan" in Nao Do Gyarah (1957). The latter is especially interesting in its subtle Shankar influences in the hand gestures and movements, the hand shimmies, the Kathakali-style hand pushes, and the rotations around the central axis--all implemented by Zohra despite the Western-style music and murder-mystery backdrop. Sneaky!

The 1950s seems to be when the other artists formerly associated with Uday Shankar began choreographing for films, such as Sachin Shankar, Narendra Sharma, and the work of Simkie. The career paths of students associated with Uday Shankar's school and film work, their influences on cinema and theatre dance, the influence of leftist groups like the IPTA, and the greater context of Indian independence and India's cultural and artistic awakening begs for further study and analysis!

Sources:
1. Abrahams, Ruth. "The Life and Art of Uday Shankar."
2. Bhatia, Uday. "Risen from the Depths (Neecha Nagar)."The Big Indian Picture blog.
3. Lakshmi, C.S. Mirrors & Gestures: Conversations with Women Dancers. 2003.
4. Ranga Rao, VAK.  "Dance in Indian Cinema." Rasa: The Indian Performing Arts in the Last Twenty-five Years, Volume I, Music and Dance.  Eds Bimal Mukherjee and Sunil Kothari. 1995.
5. Segal, Kiran. Fatty (as excerpted in Meet the Charming Zohra Segal, Rediff.com).
6. Segal, Zohra. Close-Up: Memoirs of a Life on Stage and Screen. 2010

Further reading:

• Khokar, Ashish Mohan. "Zohra Segal: The Dance History Column."Narthaki.com
• Erdman, Joan. Stages: The Art and Adventures of Zohra Segal. 1996.
• Segal, Zohra. "Shankar's Ballet."Natya. December 1963.
• Simkie's Choreography in the Awara Dream Sequence (Hindi, 1951)
• My posts about Uday Shankar

Found: Vyjayanthimala's Other Bharatanatyam Dance in Chittor Rani Padmini (1963, Tamil)!

March 22, 2014, 9:23 am

≫ Next: Uday Shankar, Ruth St. Denis, and Ted Shawn in Utah!

≪ Previous: Zohra Segal's Shankar-Style Choreography in Neecha Nagar (Hindi, 1946)

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In my first post on V.S. Muthuswami Pillai, the nattuvanar who among many things choreographed most of Vyjayanthimala's best Bharatanatyam in Indian cinema, I had discussed a beautiful Bharatanatyam dance of Vyjayanthimala's in the 1963 Tamil film Chittor Rani Padmini but lamented that I couldn't locate the second dance at the end of the movie she was said to have performed for the king.

Well! The dance has now been located, at the rich treasure house of Kandasamy Sekkarakudi Subbiah Pillai's YouTube channel, and it is fantastic! Whereas "Devi Vithayar Bhavani" depicts the dance of a devadasi inside a temple, "Paarthuk Kondirunthaaley Pothum" depicts the dance of a rajadasi at the king's court. Muthuswami Pillai choreographed the numbers differently; the former dance is restricted to a small physical space and the choreography is performed very precisely, but the latter court dance is snazzed up with expansive flourishes and speedy embellishments fit for the court. And what elevates it from so many other mundane and sloppy Bharatanatyam-inspired court dances in cinema is Vyjayanthimala's sheer talent and training.

The dance starts at 2:16 with a Bharatanatyam salutation (quite similar to that in New Delhi) and raises ones hopes of seeing classical choreography come to life on screen, but the next three minutes are a mix of abhinaya and "filmi classical" movements that reminds me so much of the way that Padmini danced in cinema, though Vyjayanthimala has a more methodical grace. At 5:10, some refreshingly-skilled tabla playing kicks off a four-and-a-half-minute, fast-paced, pure-dance segment in which Vyjayanthimala energetically mimics through dance the raaga-scaling vocal antics of Sivaji Ganesan's character in a "call and response" fashion. The speed she is performing at is too fast for a lot of the adavu-fusions, but despite that she manages to lock her limbs into place and create beautiful visual geometry. Look at her go! Only Kamala and Vyjayanthimala are capable of dancing Bharatanatyam in films with such speed while maintaining relative poise and form.

  

Wow! Of her film choreography that stays quite close to Bharatanatyam, this is her most energetic and exciting dance number! The knee spins at 8:20 are an interesting inclusion. I found the ending quite disappointing because the lazy footwork and editing didn't match the increasing excitement of the vocals and pace. Wouldn't some of this song's choreography have been spectacular in the epic danceoff in Vanjikottai Vaaliban!

Since I'm on the topic of Vyjayanthimala, I realized that when I previously created the playlist of her Bharatanatyam/South Indian-based film dances, I forgot about her Bharatanatyam segment in the 1954 Tamil film Penn (also made in Telugu as Sangham and in Hindi as Ladki) which is quite an egregious oversight because it is among her best film Bharatanatyam! It is the one authentic-leaning Bharatanatyam film dance of hers that is not choreographed by VS Muthuswami Pillai. Instead, the nattuvanar KN Dhandayudhapani Pillai, who choreographed many film dances (including Kamala's Bharatanatyam in Chori Chori), crafted it. Here's the playlist again starting with Vyjayantimala's beautiful dance in Penn followed by its very similar reproduction in Sangham and Ladki (notice in the Hindi version the raaga/melody is changed to what sounds like a distinctly North Indian one):

And last, here is another new dance of Vyjayanthimala's from Chittor Rani Padmini in a filmi North Indian style (and there's also a dance by Ragini in the film too!):

   

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Uday Shankar, Ruth St. Denis, and Ted Shawn in Utah!

April 12, 2014, 2:00 pm

≫ Next: Meeting and Interviewing Kamala! And a Rare Video Find at the NYPL!

≪ Previous: Found: Vyjayanthimala's Other Bharatanatyam Dance in Chittor Rani Padmini (1963, Tamil)!

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While browsing through the Utah Digital Newspapers website (mostly public-domain material, woo!), I was surprised to learn that Uday Shankar, Ruth St. Denis, and Ted Shawn all performed multiple times in Utah, my current U.S. state of residence, between 1911 and 1962!

That Uday Shankar performed here was most surprising of all. In all my past reading and research about Uday Shankar, I had never read a reference to him or his company performing anywhere in the Intermountain West region of the United States. Very little details about Shankar's touring schedules are available, and for a long time I assumed his company only performed in big cities like New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles because those were the only ones briefly mentioned.

General details of Uday Shankar's tours are outlined in the writings of Mohan Khokar and Ruth Abrahams. Nearly all of the performances in the U.S. by Shankar's company were sponsored by the renowned impresario Sol Hurok who first saw the group perform in Paris. Uday Shankar's first company (comprised of family, friends, and Simkie) first toured the U.S. in 1932-33 and 1933-34. Uday Shankar's second company (with new choreography and dancer additions Zohra Segal and Madhavan) performed in the U.S. in 1936-37 and 1937-38. After a return to India, the opening and closing of the Almora Center, and the release of the film Kalpana with little commercial success, Shankar and his third company (entirely revised with dancer addition Amala Shankar) returned to the U.S. in 1949 for a 10 week tour and again in 1951-52. The company's last performances in the United States took place in 1968.

Ruth Abrahams' dissertation on Uday Shankar is the only source I've found that gives specific details about Shankar's tours. A 1933 touring schedule on page 147 reveals that beyond the expected big cities, the tour included stops in places like Cleveland, Ohio; Madison, Wisconsin; Springfield, Missouri; Birmingham, Alabama; Waco, Texas; Tuscon, Arizona; and cities along the coastal pacific northwest and California. Abrahams notes, "The magnitude of the tour effort is remarkable to consider when one reflects on the circumstances of the times, the lack of convenient transportation, and the sheer bulk of personnel and baggage. Amenities, both professional and personal, were schizophrenic in effect—sometimes luxurious, but more often minimal, and the company was hard put upon to locate decent, affordable restaurants and housing. Usually, they just ate and slept on trains between concert dates." I wonder if the company encountered difficulties in their Deep South performance in Birmingham. When Indrani Rehman and her troupe performed in Louisiana almost three decades later in 1961, the troupe was refused admission to two restaurants due to racial segregation [14].

Source: Utah Daily Chronicle [12]

It wasn't until I took a stroll through the Utah Digital Newspapers website that I discovered Uday Shankar and his company performed in Utah at least three times in the 1950s and 60s. The company performed first in 1952 at the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake City and then in 1962 gave two performances—one at the College of Southern Utah in Cedar City and another at Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah. The picture on the right is from an article announcing the Kingsbury Hall performance, and I don't believe I have seen it anywhere else! A 1962 tour is not explicitly mentioned in Abrahams' or Khokar's descriptions (Khokar just says Hurok sponsored Shankar's tours several times from 1949-1968), so this discovery adds to the knowledge base about Shankar's touring schedules.

For a visit to Utah, the performances in Salt Lake City are expected. The greater Salt Lake City area has always been one of the few large metropolitan areas in the Intermountain West and was once known as the "crossroads of the west." But a performance in the small college town Cedar City 250 miles away in southern Utah is hard to fathom! Below are a few photographs I found of the Cedar City performance at the digital archives of the College of Southern Utah (now Southern Utah University), but no details are listed other than the ID of the "Shankar Ballet." I don't recognize any of the dancers, and I haven't the slightest idea who the guests are. Anyone recognize them?

Right: Indian guests with College of Southern Utah President Braithwaite

Shankar's performances in Utah were well received. Keeping in line with the orientalism of the time period, a Salt Lake Telegram article reported, "Mr. Shankar brings a complete repertoire of exotic dances from his native India. Through his art, American audiences will have an opportunity to become acquainted with a dance technique unknown in the western world, the Mudras. The Mudras, an incredibly graceful, intricate and expressive system of sign language, are capable of relating the most complex legends of Hindu gods and heroes with all their overtones of mysticism and sensuality. [4]"

A review by Tom Mathews described the performance in more earnest, appreciative terms."Those bold enough to attend were rewarded richly for their temerity. For those who were frightened by the words "Hindu Ballet," I give my sympathy. They made the most serious mistake of the season in their show-going judgment. Without knowing the least thing about such an admittedly esoteric subject as Hindu dancing, I sat in a goggle at the incredible grace and gentleness of maestro Shankar. He didn't move; he flowed....Shankar's wife, Amala...never stopping, always melting, she dipped and swooped like a leaf falling in still air..."[13]. And let's not forget that Uday Shankar was a very handsome man who was referred to in an advertisement as "ardently admired by repressed women throughout the world," or, in the frank words of Mohan Khokar, as one who "turned American women on, and they said so uninhibitedly."

Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in Utah

So guess who else performed many times in Utah? Early modern dance pioneers Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn! This is not as surprising as Uday Shankar given that St. Denis and Shawn were Americans who toured extensively all over the country, and Salt Lake City had some nice theaters at that time. Researching their travel schedules is refreshingly easy thanks to a 1962 publication by Christena Schlundt that documents their performances. However, the Utah Digital Newspapers website fills in some details not available from Schlundt's book including a couple missing performances.

Source: Salt Lake Tribune, 1911

Ruth St. Denis visited Utah at least seven times. Her first was in 1911 as a solo artist performing "Egyptian" and "Hindu" numbers accompanied by Professor Inayat Khan and his Indian musicians under the direction of Walter Meyrowitz. Her return visits with Ted Shawn over the following decade were all performances at vaudeville circuit theaters in Utah. In 1916, the Denishawn company performed at the Orpheum theater in Salt Lake City, and Ruth also gave an illustrated talk to a dramatic arts class at the University of Utah under the invitation of Professor Maud May Babcock. The Denishawn company then performed at the Pantages theater in Salt Lake City in 1918, 1919, and 1920. The company predated Udah Shankar in adding performances in smaller Utah towns to the list, in this case at the Orpheum theater in Ogden in 1919 and the Lyric Theatre in Logan in 1920. After Ruth announced her retirement from vaudeville, the Denishawn dancers returned in 1926 for an elaborate concert performance at the Salt Lake Theater with "exotic" costumes purchased "in the Orient". That appears to have been their last performance in Utah. Ruth did return in 1939 to Salt Lake City where in addition to being hosted by local society ladies she also "addressed a meeting of the New Frontier club on 'The Ministry of Beauty'" and was described as "a staunch believer in the moral rearmament movement and is at present director of all arts for the Oxford movement in this country"[15,16].

A review of one of the 1926 performances had a harsher orientalist tone than the Uday Shankar reviews above which were written a generation later: "The Orient, with all its savage, grotesque abandonment, was vividly presented in a series of dances by the Denishawn artist Monday evening."Most amusing of all was the description of Ted Shawn's "superb rendition of The Cosmic Dance of Siva" [5]. I can think of a host of adjectives other than "superb" to describe that one, though commenting on the Denishawn dance style and their being products of the time period is beyond the scope of this post.

Source: Goodwin's Weekly, 1911

Writing about Ruth's dance style, a 1913 article in the Ogden Standard [5] reported, "...she can dance with her toes, her feet, her fingers, her body and then she can dance without dancing at all. She calls that last kind of dancing the soul dance. She learned it in India and is now showing Americans how to dance while sitting on the floor. 'When I sit motionless, as the Hindu idol Vishu [sic], I am dancing' she asserts. 'The impression is mental. I send out what might be called vibrations which are felt by the audience'..." The articles goes on to assert, "Dancing is classed by Ruth St. Dennis as the Cinderella of the arts. While the more favored sisters were being patted on the head and led on to greater perfection, dancing has been shoved out in the back shed and made to look shabby...Miss St. Denis is another fairy godmother rescuing the art of dancing from the house of neglect."Sound familiar, my fellow students of Indian dance history?

Dance in Utah

Both of the above discoveries are reflective of the history and popularity of dance in Utah. Utah's capital Salt Lake City was founded by members of the Mormon (Latter Day Saint) religion who migrated from the northeast/midwest to escape religious persecution, and dance and theater have always had an elevated status in Mormon culture and Utah history from the beginning. As modern dance evolved in the twentieth century, Utah followed suit. Early on, dancers inspired by Ruth St. Denis and/or trained at Denishawn taught and performed the style at local social clubs and schools [9,10]. One article explained, "The idea in teaching these dances to the girls of the school is to make it possible for them to interpret the school of the oriental world and to understand the ideals of those people and not for the purposes of reproducing the steps of the dances...the Yogi or religious dances of the Mohammadans, in which the eternal quest for knowledge of the divine spirit is the interpretation to be made by the dancer..."[17]. As modern dance continued to evolve, influential individuals like Maude May Babcock and Aline Coleman Smith were part of what became the University of Utah and Brigham Young University (BYU) dance departments. Speaking of BYU and in light of the recent performance there by Nrityagram, I was surprised that I found no evidence of Shankar or Denishawn performing at BYU or in Provo/Utah County.

I was quite fascinated to learn that Ruth Emma Hull, the mother of Ruth St. Denis, was raised in the "burned-over district" area of western New York which was nicknamed as such due to the intense, uniquely-American Christian religious revivals and new religions (including the Mormons) that swept over the area like a forest fire. Hull became a Methodist and she and her husband moved to New Jersey where daughter Ruth Dennis (stage name Ruth St. Denis) was later born, but Hull could have easily become a Mormon and moved to Utah! Imagine how differently dance history might have turned out...

What makes this post so exciting is that it leads to the identification of more places that a dance performance of Uday Shankar or Ruth St. Denis might have been recorded or photographed and preserved in an archive that has gone or is going digital. What treasures out there might await!

But the most exciting part of all was learning of the performance at the University of Utah which is a hallowed place for me as it has served as a source/conduit for much of my blog research! Having just last weekend attended an event at a performance hall right next to Kingsbury Hall, it is so exciting to think that the spaces I walked on may have once been the same spots Uday Shankar once stepped. If only Shankar's company would have performed here when Simkie was a member of the troupe. Now that would be truly inspiring!

Sources

Books:

Abrahams, Ruth. The Life and Art of Uday Shankar. PhD Dissertation.
Khokar, Mohan. His Dance, His Life: A Portrait of Uday Shankar.
Schlundt, Christena. The Professional Appearances of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn: A Chronology and an Index of Dances 1906-1932.

Articles at Utah Digital Newspapers:

1. "Address is Given by Ruth St. Denis: Famous Orpheum Dancer Speaks to Class in Dramatic Art at University of Utah."Salt Lake Tribune. September 23, 1916.
2. "Attractions of the Week in Theaters of Salt Lake." Salt Lake Tribune. March 26, 1911.
3. "Attractions of the Week in Theaters of Salt Lake." Salt Lake Tribune. March 19, 1911.
4. "Box-Office Ticket Sale Near for Shankar Hindu Ballet."Salt Lake Telegram. January 25, 1952.
5. "Dances Without Wiggling Her Feet." Ogden Standard. December 27, 1913.
6. "Denishawn Dancers Feature Bizarre Oriental Numbers." Salt Lake Telegram. December 28, 1926.
7. "Denishawns Coming to the Lyric Theatre." Logan Republican. March 2, 1920.
8. "Graceful Dancers at Pantages This Week."Salt Lake Herald. April 17, 1918. 
9. "Granite High Pupils to Do Denis Dances."Salt Lake Tribune. March 22, 1918.
10. "Happenings in Society."Salt Lake Tribune. May 18, 1919.
11. "Hindu Artists Will Display Dancing Talent."Iron City Record. September 29, 1962. 
12. "Hindu Dance Troupe Slated for Kingsbury Performance." Utah Daily Chronicle. October 22, 1962. 
13. "Incredible Grace of Hindu Dancers Exciting Experience for Audience."Salt Lake Telegram. January 31, 1952.
14. "Indian Dancer Hits Race Curb in South." New York Times. November 21, 1961. [accessed via ProQuest Historical Newspapers]
15. "Noted Dancer with Her Hostesses."Salt Lake Telegram. August 29, 1939.
16. "Ruth St. Denis Dashes from Party to Party During Brief Visit Here."Salt Lake Telegram. August 29, 1939.
17. "Salt Lake Girls Will Interpret Dances of Orient: 25 Taught to Express Emotions by Rhythm."Salt Lake Herald. March 17, 1918.
18. "The Denishawn Dancers to Appear in Salt Lake."Salt Lake Telegram. December 12, 1926.

Meeting and Interviewing Kamala! And a Rare Video Find at the NYPL!

May 24, 2014, 6:20 pm

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Get out of the way people, dance nerds coming through!

Last week I had the pleasure of taking a dream trip to New York City and visiting the hallowed walls of the place that has for years beckoned me with its unparalleled collection of Indian dance treasures...the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts! For so long I have been fantasizing about the trip but it always seemed a bit out of reach until fate coalesced and I found an opportunity to get away. I met up there with fellow Indian dance research/archive nerd extraordinaire Ragothaman and we proceeded to voraciously power through the NYPL's Dance Division holdings with anxious excitement! Can you believe it—I held in my hands the personal notes and photos of Simkie, Indrani Rehman, and more.

But the most stunning find happened right after arrival on the first item Ragothaman and I viewed. It was an item in the catalog that had intrigued me—a 3-minute film reel titled "two Indian dancers" with location and date unknown and the coy description "Performance of East Indian dance, possibly Bharata natyam. A dance by two women (the second dancer, at stage right, is only intermittently visible on film) is followed by solo dances." My mind went wild with possibilities! It could be anyone in the video!

The NYPL staffer set up the silent film reel for us in the private viewing room and as the first few frames of the darkly-lit, grainy recording flashed on the screen we couldn't believe our eyes! It was footage of Kamala and her sister Rhadha dancing Bharatanatyam on stage, in color, in the late 1950s or early 1960s! Kamala could be seen relatively close-up at times, her abhinaya on display as she mouthed the words of the song. The short film reel opened with Kamala and Rhadha performing an alarippu, followed by Rhadha doing a jathiswaram, then Kamala dancing a kirtanam/varnam. The segments were short clips that were hastily edited together and when both sisters were dancing together Rhadha was often unseen outside of the frame. The costumes were in blue and pinkish-orange for Kamala and dark green and orange for Rhadha. The clip seems to be the only extant footage of Kamala's early stage Bharatanatyam outside of cinema, and seeing Rhadha joining her is a rarity! The guess of the date is based on how similar Kamala and Rhadha look to their performance in the film Bhakta Kuchela which was supposedly released in 1961. Oh how I wished I could take just one single screencap of the film reel for my readers, but recording and photography of any kind in the film viewing room was strictly prohibited.

The high I felt after happening onto such an amazing discovery was infinitely topped when I got to meet the great Kamala herself in person. Kamala graciously spoke to Ragothaman and I for over an hour, and she was delightfully cheerful and jovial despite a busy day of teaching Bharatanatyam (one month shy of 80, she drives herself all over the greater New York City area and demonstrates the movements herself in her classes. Amazing!) and despite our being over an hour late after missing our train! While Ragothaman will be posting about the portions of the interview outside of cinema topics, I will report on, of course, the film stuff!

Kamala and me! Humbled!

Speaking of the process of recording film dances choreographed by her guru Vazhuvoor Ramaiah Pillai, Kamala related that the film choreography would be designed at home while listening to the already-composed film music, and the movement design was a collaborative process between she and her guru. The film shootings almost always happened only on weekdays and the schedule was grueling with a 5-6 a.m. pickup time for the car sent from the studio, a makeup session, and then film shooting for hours. The shoots did not stretch for a full-day shooting as her mother signed only for a half-day call sheet, allowing Kamala to study with her guru in the evenings. At the studio, Vazhuvoorar would be given complete freedom to choreograph the song as he wished in his style that was the same as he composed for the stage. "No camera conscious," Kamala said of his approach to the craft under the eye of the camera lens. After a segment was shot, she and Vazhuvoorar could preview the rushes and make adjustments as needed. An advantage of the movies over the stage certainly, but one that likely wasn't needed by Kamala as she was "known for giving just one take in one shot," a skill which she credited humbly not to herself but to God.

Touching on the topic I have recently found fascinating, that of the unique advantages the film medium brings to dance, Kamala noted that dance in the movies is completely different from dance on the stage in its themes and locations and, most of all, the tricks and angles offered by the camera which create "a new feeling for the dance." But Kamala preferred dancing for the stage because it offered her complete control and, seemingly, a challenge. "On the stage we cannot create that [new feeling], but with our work, we'll make the audience spellbound. That is the only thing we have." And isn't Indian dance so highly developed in the way it takes a solo performer on a bare stage and transforms the experience into a transcendental connection with the audience!

Kamala was at her most delightful when she spoke of specific film dances and told humorous stories peppered with her charming laughter. She seemed most fond of the dance in Chenda that she choreographed for herself and her two sisters (the video of which I discovered online last year) at the insistence of the film's cameraman. It was the only dance featuring all three sisters. She also spoke of the camera tricks utilized in many of her dances like the camera mask in Naam Iruvarwhere she danced first the right side and then the left and also the colored powder footwork of the Simha (Lion) in Konjum Salangai. Kamala immediately recalled her peacock dance in Sumai Thaangi (also discovered online last year) when we mentioned it and noted that she was asked to dance it on stage after people saw it in cinemas.

The film dance setting Kamala was most disappointed by seems to have been for her grand performance in Chori Chori. "My dance in Chori Chori—it was such a beautiful thillana, and they put it where! When Pran is sitting there and watching and looking at this another girl. I told Chettiar, such a beautiful thillana and you have Nataraja in the background and the orchestra and everything playing so nicely...and what a situation you have given for the dance!" she exclaimed with her infectious laughter. "Very crazy people...sometimes they are crazy. What to do!"

Kamala confirmed that she had never danced in films with Vyjayanthimala or Padmini—something I have wondered about for some time because it would simply be EPIC, would it not! She shrugged off the idea noting that both were "snobbish people" though Padmini would at least recognize and talk to her. The great Vyjayanthimala-Padmini dance-off in Vanjikottai Vaaliban seemed to be on her mind when she surmised that film producers simply wanted to make more money by pairing such eminent stars together in one film which brought each's fanbase to the cinema halls.

As the interview neared its end, Kamala endearingly spoke of seeing the movie The Dirty Picture just to see Silk Smitha's dance, though she likely meant Vidya Balan's portrayal of Silk Smitha's dance. "When I was young, you know, I couldn't see those things, I was busy with my own work...but she is a fantastic dancer!" After seeing the film, Kamala felt such sadness for Silk Smitha that she couldn't sleep that night. "See how lucky I am that God didn't push me into things like that...to do dances like that [for survival]." Once more Kamala exclaimed, "she is a marvelous dancer!" As the conversation moved to the subject of devadasi dance and changes in Bharatanatyam, Kamala connected the story of Silk Smitha's life with some of the devadasi's lives that were "spoiled by rich people."

How lucky am I to have met the woman who has provided this blog with such inspiration and joy for so long! Huge thanks are due to Aasish Cherukupalli, a big fan of my blog, and Prema Aier of Sri Bharata Kamalalaya for their crucial assistance in helping the interview become a reality, as well as those who kindly hosted us. And I'm also greatful for Ragothaman's expert usage of Tamil in smoothing over the awkward moments when Kamala couldn't understand my accent or volume :). I also met up with another blogger at the NYPL—Richard of the Dances on the Footpath Blog who posted about Kamala long before I. It has been a great meeting of the Kamala-loving minds this month!

More Kamala Finds at the NYPL

While Kamala unfortunately does not have her own "papers" in the special collections of the NYPL like some other Indian dancers do (maybe one day she will donate some or all of her documentation), there were a few interesting finds of hers in the NYPL's catalog. A 1960 article she wrote titled "Bharata Natyam as I See It" was available as was the 1954 Films Division documentary on Bharatanatyam that I've previously discussed (and that I hope will soon be posted online in good quality at the Films Division YouTube channel, especially since they just posted the Kathak one a few weeks ago).

Adding to the list of coincidences related to Kamala's name and life (recall how her first husband remarried another woman named Kamala and also the crossed paths of Radha Viswanathan with Kamala's sister Rhadha), I was surprised to find that an item in the catalog referencing "Kamala Kumari" was not the Kumari Kamala of this post with the name order reversed but instead the name of a completely different person! The item was a 1959 program for Shakuntala with the lead role of Shakuntala performed by Kamala Kumari and "dances by Nala Najan and Medah Von Essen." The "About the Cast" section of the program sheds light on who Kamala Kumari was: "Miss Kumari came to this country from Bombay three years ago as a scholarship student from Bombay University to study pharmacy at Drake University, Iowa, from which she was graduated with honors this year. An accomplished dancer, she appeared with the famed Ram Gopal troupe at the Edinburgh Festival in 1956 while en route to the U.S. She was selected for her present role by director Lee Morgan who saw her dance at a convention of the India Association in Chicago. This is her first New York appearance." Through Ragothaman I then learned that "Kamala Kumari" was the stage name of Penny Thomas aka Penny Furgerson, who runs the Gateway Dance Theatre in Iowa. How interesting that she danced with Nala Najan and Ram Gopal (though unfortunately not in a year that BritishPathe has viewable in its online archive).

The most exciting Kamala finds at the NYPL were of course items not identified in the catalog because they were scattered among a slew of items from a folder in the papers of a dancer's special collection. Within the Nala Najan papers was a program for the 1985-86 Festival of India presented at Columbia University with dances by Kamala Narayan, Ritha Devi, Janaki Patrik, and Leela. How interesting to learn that "Kamala Narayan" as she was called at that time was selected by the Indian government "to represent Indian Art and Music at the Asian Convention in Las Vegas in 1962 and at the Theatre Des Nations in Paris in 1964." Yet more video recordings that might be in existence of Kamala's dance!

But the most rare Kamala find in the Nala Najan papers was a handful of small black of white photographs of her performing on stage in what appears to be the early 1950s. No name was written on them, but we knew they were Kamala! Here are three that I find quite interesting which I'm posting here in low quality with commentary. Her choice of jewelry is very understated and the fan ends higher on the leg than many of her costumes in later years. And the back of a head and possible microphone can be seen at the bottom of the last picture. Might it be a snap of Vazhuvoor Ramaiah Pillai's nattuvangam?

My Article "Screendance in Indian Cinema" and Thoughts on Film Dance

May 31, 2014, 3:23 pm

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Last week saw the end of the fourth Naada Bindu Festival—a three-day residential arts retreat at the Chinmaya Naada Bindu gurukul for Indian performing arts in Pune. The festival features a number of dance and music performances, lecture-demonstrations, and other activities. Ramaa Bharadvaj, whose "Reminiscences of a Disciple" personal article on Kamala I posted back in 2011, is the director for dance at the Chinmaya Naada Bindu and she "conceptualised, designed and edited" a journal for this year's festival titled Rasikatvam. I had the honor of being invited to write an article for the journal on the topic of classical dances in cinema culture, and I chose to write specifically about the advantages and distinct pleasures that screendance offers to audiences of Indian dance. My submitted article was edited somewhat and given a snazzy layout for the final printing. Images of the article are at the end of this post and it can be viewed in its entirety here.

I wrote the article as a beginner to the topic of screendance, and as I read some published literature on the subject it became clear that the growing field is rich in thought-provoking theory with ample room for further analysis and scholarship. The sources I found the most exciting and comprehensive and would recommend to anyone interested in this subject are first Harmony Bench's review essay in Dance Research Journal, and then the two books that Bench reviewed: Screendance: Inscribing the Ephemeral Image by Douglas Rosenberg (especially chapters 1-3; brief Google Books preview) and Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image by Erin Brannigan (previewable on Google Books).

Reading these sources has changed the way I view Indian dance as captured in cinema and by the camera, and a spark has been lit in my mind about the advantages and pleasures the format offers to Indian dance forms. I'm not sure that I really got to the heart of my excitement in my basic and dryly-written article, but it provides a basic overview of the advantages of Indian dance on film and some interesting food for thought.
I think what most excited me about reading through screendance scholarship was the mind-shift that dance as captured by the camera can be viewed as a unique art completely disassociated from the live performance. Forget the fact that a live person was dancing in front of a camera lens or that you seem to simply be watching an edited recording of that live body. In truth, that live performance has ceased to exist and you are watching something newly birthed by the choreographic tools of framing, editing, and filming. You are watching a body that has, by the use of film and digital technologies, been "fundamentally fixed, no longer subject to the vagaries of the body, space, or time" which sits "in archival limbo until the point at which it is recorporealized for public performance" when you watch that YouTube video or press play on that DVD. Recorporealized—"the literal reconstruction of the dancing body via screen-techniques," an "edited body [that] becomes the authentic body as it outlives its subject" (Rosenberg).

I realized that my normal way of watching film dance is somewhat passive and I am not fully cognizant of all the technical and creative facets that are part of the moving image I am viewing. I tend to watch it in a way that is similar to how I would if I was sitting in the audience in front of a proscenium stage, and the documentation aspect of that live person standing there many years ago is never far from my mind. I certainly notice editing and cinematography, especially if it's particularly inventive or noticeable enough, but it's usually not in the forefront of my attention. But having read screendance scholarship, I find myself watching these same dances with a completely new lens!

A passive viewing mindset is perhaps how dance in popular Indian cinema is designed to be viewed—as entertainment as part of larger package that aims for commercial success. Harmony Bench notes in her review essay that the subject of "screendance as a popular phenomenon" is a large gap area "begging for additional scholarship." Certainly with Indian popular screendance, "filmi" and Bollywood song-and-dance has gotten some scholarly attention, but I don't recall anything beyond basic references to screendance technique and theory and certainly no one seems to have written about the subject with the depth and detail that scholars like Rosenberg have for general screendance.

Rosenberg's well-written text made me realize that much of the dance I have seen in Indian cinema is not sufficiently "designed for the express purpose of the camera," a common definition of screendance. Sure, there are a number of interesting editing and film-making choices as I summarized in my article, but they seem to rarely rise to the level of true screendance free of other purposes (films like Kalpana being an exception). The enormous film industry in India offers what seems to me an untapped opportunity for creative minds in screendance—hundreds of opportunities to choreograph, frame, and edit dance designed just for the camera that would in many cases enjoy broad distribution and automatic preservation.

The area that does seem to offer space for the full flowering of innovation in Indian dance as captured by the camera is in the non-feature film, "dance film" format that is increasingly given recognition at dance film and screendance festivals around the globe. Bollynatyam featured some choice Indian classical dance films in a fantastic post on the subject back in February. I think this format offers the greatest potential pleasures to dance forms rooted in traditional Indian movement vocabulary especially in the concepts of rasa, performer-audience connection, and kinesthetic empathy. And those are topics I expect no one has addressed in the subject of screendance! Expanding beyond the narrow confines of traditional "classical dance," I am sure that an exploration into the artists performing contemporary and modern dance in India would reveal fascinating works of screendance and interaction with visual media.

Now as I watch my beloved classical and traditional Indian dances as presented in Indian cinema, I now have a deeper appreciation for their construction and importance as stand-alone works of art, and I hope to discover more Indian "dance films" that showcase the potential of the art form. I'm still developing my thoughts about this broad subject and have to apply my new perspective to the plethora of film dances I've seen over the years. More to come!

My Article in Rasikatvam - Also in one document here:

Further reading and resources:

Screendance: the State of the Art - Proceedings. American Dance Festival. 2006.

The International Journal of Screendance

List of Dance Film Festivals - Dance Films Association

Nuse, Anna Brady. "Creating a Lexicon for Screendance."

Rosenberg, Douglas. "Essay on Screen Dance." 2000.

Related posts:
> Dance in Early Indian Cinema: Some Video Evidence
> Two More Busby Berkeley-Inspired Top Shots in 1930s Indian Film Dances
> Finally! Kalpana (1948) is Viewable Online! (now THAT's some creative screendance!)

Adventures in Date-ing the BritishPathe Devadasi Dance and Video

June 26, 2013, 9:59 pm

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Since I last posted about the amazing video find of two South Indian devadasis dancing in Baroda around the 1930s, I have been obsessed with finding proof of two things: the identities of the devadasis, and the true date the video footage was filmed.

BritishPathe has no documentation for the video (only noting it "appears to be some kind of celebration") and through personal communication with me confirmed that the "1930-35" date estimate was based only on other films found in the same canister.  I'm excited to reveal my research on this incredible footage of not only pre-revival "Bharatanatyam" but also royal activities in a princely state before Indian independence!  While the identity question is still being investigated, I feel like I can make an educated guess about the date: mid to late 1920s, most likely 1926!  This is based on the youthful appearance of Pratapsingrao in the video and the fact that a BritishPathe film crew was present and would likely have only done so for especially large events, most likely the 1926 Golden Jubilee.

Why is the Date Important?

Beyond being able to give a date estimate for a rare video with no documentation, I find the date determination important because if it was really filmed around 1926, the dance segment is an example of "Bharatanatyam" dance before most of the significant legal events and reconstruction activities towards the devadasi lifestyle and dance occurred in India and before the "dance revival" of the 1930s.  In the Madras Presidency, Muthulakshmi Reddy didn't make her recommendation to the Legislative Assembly to criminalize temple dedication until 1927, the Music Academy of Madras was not even founded until 1928-29, E. Krishna Iyer presented the first dancers from the traditional community at the annual conference starting in 1931, and it was years later before Rukmini Devi Arundale presented her arangetram in the dance form and created the institution Kalakshetra.  Closer home to Baroda, the neighboring Bombay Presidency did not enact its anti-devadasi legislation until 1934 [7].  While anti-devadasi sentiment and actions had been in place across the subcontinent since the mid 1800s, the fact that the video appears to have been filmed in a princely state before the most fervent formalization of the sentiment makes it especially important to the historical record.

But what has also been fascinating is that getting to my 1926 estimate resulted in a rich yield of research and rare photos about the princely state of Baroda (presently Vadodara) which I'm excited to share here.  I've been able to identify a few people in the video as well as nearly all the filming locations!

Identifying the Royal Family

The "Maharanee of Baroda" as alluded to in the title is not the only royalty of the princely state of Baroda seen in the video; her husband, Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, and his grandson and heir Pratapsinghrao Gaekwad can be seen as well!  Together they ruled Baroda from 1875-1939 and 1939-1951 respectively.

Seated left to right: Pratapsingrao, Sayajirao

The older man seated on the right is the Maharaja himself! But its the person on the left, his grandson Pratapsinh (spelled many ways which I'll use throughout), that was the key to narrowing the date of the video.  While the above image is the clearest and closest shot of Sayajirao and Pratapsingh in the video, they can also be seen walking around in the outdoor portions of the video.  Here's the outdoor shots of Pratap Singh Gaekwad--he is the one on the left:

Notice his mustache and his very lean and thin frame?  These physical characteristics are starkly in contrast to his appearance from at least the mid-1930s and beyond in which he continued to gain ever increasing amounts of weight and shaved his mustache.  Here are some early photos; since he was born in 1908, the undated photos would have to be the 1920s when he was in his teens and early 20s:

Undated photos: left [4], right (source)

Sayajirao's family portraits: left [3], right (1926, [4]) Circled in red: Pratapsingrao; in blue: presumably sister Indira Devi, who had her last child in 1920

Compare to these photos of him in later years, the earliest of which I could find is 1934 (age 26):

Left to right: 1934 (source), 1939 (source), unknown (source), 1948 (source)

The lean and lithe Pratapsingrao in the BritishPathe video serves as the strongest evidence for its being filmed in the 1920s or no later than the early 1930s.  I could be more precise if I could find pictures of Pratapsingh from 1927-1933 (this lot at Bonham's says it has pictures from his wedding to Shanta Devi in 1929--anyone have 312 pounds to spare? ha!).  But given the information below, 1926 seems the most likely date for the video!

Maharaja Sayajirao 

Sayajirao [3]

Maharaja Sayajirao is an interesting character to read about (for example, Wikipedia and The Prince and the Man) especially for those of us not very well-read about British India and the princely states.  Before Indian independence, Baroda was a wealthy and prominent princely state in Northwest India in what is today known as Gujarat.  According to Barbara Ramusack, Sayajirao was one of the most well-known examples of British intervention tactics in princely states through the inteference in matters of succession, adoption, and education of young rulers.  After the previous Gaekwad Malhar Rao had been deposed, Jamnabai and the British agreed to adopt a non-literate village boy from a branch of the Gaekwad (aka Gaekwar, Gaikwad) family line, renamed him Sayaji Rao, and gave him an education by a British ICS officer [6].  The British were playing "Pygmalion with a vengeance, determined, much like Professor Higgings, to show that they could, within a span of six years, transform an unlettered rustic lad into a thoroughly accomplished autocrat" whom would be a loyal puppet for the British Raj" [3].

While Sayajirao certainly became accomplished and is fondly celebrated today for his progressive actions, social policies, infrastructure improvements, and care for his people, he was anything but a docile puppet to the British Raj.  Among other things, he aroused suspicion through his employment of Indian nationalists and "achieved notoriety" by his breach of protocol at the 1911 Delhi Durbar for King George V in which he wore plain clothes without his British decorations and insulted the king by turning his back on him before the prescribed distance (though there is evidence other rulers failed protocol too [5]).

Maharaja Sayajirao and Baroda's Grand Events

Parties and events are a recurring theme when researching Sayajirao and the activities of the ruling family in Baroda.  Like many other princely states in pre-independent India, Baroda held many Jubilees celebrating the anniversary of years of reign of its Maharaja, Sayajirao Gaekwad.  While little information is available on Sayajirao's Silver (25-year) Jubilee in 1907, his Golden (50-year) and Diamond (60-year) Jubilee celebrations in 1926 and 1936 respectively are thankfully fairly well documented.  Each Jubilee was graced by the visit of the Viceroy for a few days, and certainly this fact as well as the significance of the greater Jubilee celebrations would have drawn outside attention (like BritishPathe) to document the events of a lavish Maharaja.  I highly suspect the BritishPathe video was shot at the events surrounding the 1926 Golden Jubilee having ruled out 1936 Jubilee based on the appearance of Pratapsingrao.

1926 Golden Jubilee

Sayajirao’s Golden Jubilee was to be held in May 1925 but was put off until January 1926 when the weather had cooled [3].  The festivities began on January 11, 1926, with “a public reception, arranged in a vast mandap or marquee especially erected in the Waroshia field to the north of the city." The main event of the Golden Jubilee was this reception, but “over the rest of the week, there were other functions too: a review of the army, a garden party, a display of fireworks, a children’s party, public feeding of the poor, the performances of plays in Marathi and Gujarati, musical evenings and classical dancing" [3] as well as wrestling matches and a Children's Gathering at Nyaya Mandir [6].  Not connected with the Jubilee celebrations was another event on January 15 in which the Maharaja laid a foundation stone of a Kirti Mandir and that evening held a banquet for private club members followed by "open-air entertainment by singers and dancers" [6].   Before the Jubilee celebrations officially began, there were other events celebrating the Maharaja in December 1925 such as arena animal fights and a New Years Eve state banquet in the Laxmi Vilas Durbar Hall featuring Indian and European guests [6].  Given how many of these events match what is in the BritishPathe video, it is impossible to make any definitive match based on description alone.

Celebratory artwork [4]

Viceroy Lord Reading visited Baroda from January 21-23, 1926, about a week after the main Jubilee celebrations [4].  During the British Raj, the Viceroy of India was essentially the Queen's head administrative representative in India and also served as the representative to the "nominally sovereign princely states" who were not under direct British rule (NPG, Wikipedia).  In his biography of Maharaja Sayajirao, great-grandson Fatesinghrao Gaekwad describes what the visits by the Viceroy were really like, noting they "were occasions of state, stiff, formal, replete with protocol, unbelievably wasteful, and bristling with unpredictable hazards for the hosts" and "served no other purpose than to establish that the host was an especially favoured person whose loyalty to the Raj had been adjudged to be of requisite purity..." The speeches were "carefully prepared" with "the guest complimenting the host on his state's progress, the host reiterating his unflinching loyalty to the Raj" [3].

Parrot tricks by Sardarmiya [4]

Viceroy Reading “was accorded a ceremonial reception at the railway stations, driven in a procession through the town, taken to inspect he Baroda Jewels, treated to a durbar, a garden party, a state banquet, an ‘informal dinner’, a display of fireworks and of gymnastics, as well as to the special amusements of Baroda such as Sarhmari [Sathmari] or elephant fights, buffalo fights, and tricks performed by trained parrots” [3].  Panemanglor describes the Viceroy's visit in painstaking detail in his book all the way down to the banquet seating assignments and fancy European food concoctions.  He describes the Children's Gathering at the Nyaya Mandir held for the Viceroy and his wife.  It featured a boys choir, a garba dance featuring little girls with water bowls on their heads, a Japanese drill, and other performances.  Also held was a garden party at the Motibag grounds/gardens when the sun was setting featuring various entertainments like state acrobats, parrot tricks, and an orchestra.  Since none of these specific details can be seen in the Children's Gathering and garden party portions of the BritishPathe video, I believe the non-Viceregal events are likely candidates as the site of the filming.

Of great interest to this post is the lengthy description Panemanglor gives of the performance of the Tanjore dancers, named as Kanta and Ghoura (!), for the Viceroy in the Makkarpura palace drawing room.  The Orientalist outsider tone (much like the examples in Ragothaman's recent post) is strange given that Panemanglor was Indian, but since he was closely involved with British visits (looking "after the comforts" of the Prince of Wales during his 1921 visit and serving as the "Special Duty Officer at Makkarpura" for the visit described in the book) I assume he documented the visit with British sensitivities in mind thus the overly-positive and whitewashed tone throughout.

"But here in the Drawing room, Lord Reading was minutely surveying the Tanjore Dancers who were giving an exhibition of ancient Hindu dances, the like of which he had never seen before.  These dancers hailed from the South and the dances were peculiar too and required a tremendous amount of energy which the dancers in spite of their age seemed to have plenty.  They seemed to make as much noise as possible, now beating the floor with their feet, now turning to the left, then to the right, now making a sudden forward movement as if they were going to fall on the spectators but then suddenly stopping their progress and now again making wonderful gestures to suit their weird music and quaint dance, while the persons who stood behind them with darkish faces but wearing gold and red turbans seemed to have absolutely no mercy on the instruments they held.  So wonderfully had they coloured, clothed and jewelled themselves that they became objects of admiration and their dances were loudly applauded.  After showing several types of dances, Kanta and Ghoura as they are called gave imitations of the snake charmer and of kite flying and finished up by playing the Hindu mythological scene of Radha and Krishna, one playing the hero and the other the heroine.  His Excellency had a huge smile as he evidently thought that a demonstration of this kind on an English stage might perhaps cause a sensation.  Every one of the guests appreciated these dances but Capt. Sadekar who was sitting by the window side was half asleep but it was no fault of his and he felt relieved when the 'noise' ceased." 

1936 Diamond Jubilee

10 years later, Sayajirao's Diamond Jubilee was held in the first half of January 1936 and featured many similar activities as the 1926 celebration.  Viceroy Willingdon and his wife visited for only two days, January 5-6, and were treated to a Garden Party at the Motibag grounds among other festivities [1].  Among the other activities during the 11 total days of celebrations were military sports, a public fete, a boy scouts rally, children's gatherings, fireworks, performing arts (singing, dancing, and theatre), and various garden parties [1].  Medals were struck as a souvenir of the event and presented to those who had served the state, and I suspect this photo of the devadasis at GaekwadsofBaroda.com (caption "Darbar for Presentation of Jubilee Medals...") is documentation of the event.

I was delighted to find two rare videos of the 1936 Jubilee celebrations at the website of Movietone, another British digital newsreel archive similar to BritishPathe.  "Viceroy and Gaekwar" was filmed at the Viceroy's visit, and "Gaekwar of Baroda's Diamond Jubilee" was shot sometime during the greater Jubilee celebrations.  Since I can't embed the videos, click on the images below to view them at Movietone's website (it may require you to create a free account first):

RARE VIDEO! Click images to link to video pages

   

In the "Viceroy and Gaekwar" video above, the shot of the group walking in the open space outdoors is in exactly the same location as the segment in the BritishPathe video after the arena animal fights.  See the same building in the background circled in red?

Left: Movietone 1936 video    Right: BritishPathe video

When I first saw the "Viceroy and Gaekwar" video at Movietone I thought the Viceroy was the same person as the British (?) man in the hat in the BritishPathe video in the garden party portion (right). Problem solved, I thought! The hat and white shirt looked identical!  But after closer scrutiny it was clear they were two very different people (different hair, noses, skin tone, glasses), and after tracking down photos of the Viceroys from the time period, the difference became even more obvious!  Lord Willingdon is also distinct in appearance from Lord Reading despite the similar hair color and profile at first glance (see below--some of the photos came from the videos of them at BritishPathe).  That man in the British hat in the BritishPathe video is still a mystery.  Was he British, or was he an Indian ICS officer? Not a single person in the plethora of photographs I reviewed match his face.

Reasoning Out the Date

The grand Jubilees were not the only events of their kind held in Baroda.  Mention of many of the same activities in other events from the time period are found in multiple sources.  For example, the Prince of Wales' 1921-22 visit to Baroda with a garden party at Motibag, Viceroy Irwin's visit to Baroda in 1930 [2], and the 1943 celebration of the Maharaja's birthday featuring arena sports and a durbar.  Likewise, the Governor or Resident may have been treated to durbars for annual visits during the time period [3].  It seems there were constant durbars, garden parties, arena sports, and other events often held in the same locations as the BritishPathe video with presumably the same canopies and set pieces brought out as needed for each event.  So the events seen in the BritishPathe video have innumerable possibilities!

Nevertheless, I still think that since the BritishPathe video was presumably shot by a BritishPathe crew on location, the Jubilees are the likely events given their significance being something BritishPathe would have been interested in documenting.  If Movietone documented the 1936 Jubilee and Viceroy visit, surely BritishPathe did the same for the 1926 Jubilee!  Given that there is no sign of the Viceroy or his large party (numbered well over 80 at the 1936 event [3]) in the BritishPathe footage and given that the events filmed do not match the descriptions of the Viceregal visit, I suspect that while it was likely filmed at the Jubilee events it was not at the specific visits of the Viceroy but either the preparations beforehand or the Jubilee events held for the Barodian people.  Given Pratapsingrao's prominence in the BritishPathe video, we must also consider milestones in his life as possibilities, such as his marriage to Shantadevi in 1929 or the birth of his first child in 1930 (which saw the declaration of a public holiday and statewide celebrations [3]).  By the way, footage of Pratapsingh's crowning as the Maharaja in 1939 can be found here at Movietone (clip is called "Gaekwar of Baroda Installed").

Something that stood out to me in the BritishPathe video is the banner the little girls carry in the Children's Gathering segment which says "Hearty Congratulations from City Girls" (left); that seems like more of a jubilee-appropriate thing to say, but perhaps the congratulations were for a birthday or marriage/birth?  The BritishPathe footage is curious in its random slicing of different events and the amateur nature of much of footage (my favorite is the teasing between the two men in the closing seconds!).  Surely it is unused footage that was cut from a finished newsreel, but there is no site of this whittled newsreel to be found anywhere on BritishPathe's site!  Maybe one day it will surface...

Filming Locations of the British Pathe "Maharanee of Baroda" Video

After tracking down Panemanglor's book "The Viceregal Visit to Baroda 1926,"I was able to determine the locations of nearly all the footage in the BritishPathe video thanks to the numerous photographs and descriptions.  The video is shot in four main locations: the arena/agad near Pani Gate, the Motibag Palace gardens, the Nazarbag Palace gardens, and the Nyaya Mandir.  There are a few very brief segments that I could not determine the location of.  The British Library's Online Gallery has an excellent collection of photographs and descriptions of historic buildings in Baroda, and after browsing the collection it became clear that around the famed Laxmi Vilas Palace itself (which is not seen in the video) are many smaller palaces, like Motibag and Nazarbag, built by past Maharajas and featuring large pleasure gardens for entertaining.

Arena - Animal Fights - The animal fights seen at the beginning of the BritishPathe video (0:00-2:15) clearly take place in the same arena as the buffalo and elephant fights shown in Panemanglor's book, describes as the arena "near the Pani Gate" located on the backside of the "palace of the old Mahomedan Rulers of Baroda." Curiously, there are only buffalo and ram fights in the footage and no shots of the famed "Sathmari" elephant fights Baroda was well known for.  According to Panemanglor, Baroda's arena sports were cruelty free and the animals were separated at the first sign of injury.  He names the elephants who performed and fought as Rupkali, Mangal Gaj, and Albela; Rupkali can be seen performing tricks in this 1933 video at BritishPathe.

Top: Arena animal fights at 1926 Jubilee [4] Bottom: BritishPathe video Motibag Palace gardens

Motibag Palace Gardens - Garden Party (2:16-7:10).  The building circled in red was key to identifying this location in both the BritishPathe and Movietone videos.  I believe the domes below are also similar; apparently Motibag Stadium is today used as cricket grounds.  The Motibag Palace is "one of several small palaces in the [Laxmi Vilas Palace] grounds built by past Maharajas including the Vishran Bag, Mastu Bag, and Chiman Bag" (British Library).

Motibag Gardens 1926 (Panemanglor); Motibag Stadium/Cricket Grounds 2009 (source)

Same gardens in BP video

Nazarbag Palace Gardens - Devadasi Dance - The Nazar Bagh Palace Gardens appear to be the setting of the devadasi dance with musical ensemble (7:11-11:57), the female singer and musicians (14:02-15:22), and the shots of people walking around and setting up (17:19-17:58, 18:11-18:24-19:25 end).  The gazebo in the photo below is the key landmark--its spires and design at the base of the columns match the gazebo in the BritishPathe video.  

Gazebo in Nazarbaug Palace Garden (source)

 

Same gazebo in BP video

Nyaya Mandir - Children’s Gathering (12:50-14:01, 15:42-17:06, 18:00-18:11) - Performances by local children are a common feature in descriptions of events in Baroda.  The large hall and set of five windows at the front in the BritishPathe video clearly match photos of the Nyaya Mandir.

Nyaya Mandir - (left source)

Same two large and three smaller windows

Concluding Thoughts

If my well-researched theory that the video was filmed in the late 1920s/1926 is correct, that means it provides intriguing visual evidence regarding the much-discussed topic of what “authentic” devadasi dance (especially nritta) might have looked like and what changes Rukmini Devi Arundale and others supposedly brought to the form as it was “rehabilitated” into a respected artistic practice of middle and upper-class/caste women.  Of course, this view has to be tempered with the fact that we don’t know if the particular dance in the video was considered “good” or not or if it was altered for the event or due to the BritishPathe film crew being present.  But I still can’t believe I've witnessed a recognizable Alarippu from 1926!

Some interesting subjects for possible future research came to mind as I wrote this post.  Were there differences in anti-devadasi sentiment and legislation in princely states compared to the directly-ruled areas of British India?  How was the "devadasi question" handled in princely Baroda, especially since Sayajirao enacted many daring social reforms, among them issues affecting women, but devadasi dedication doesn't appear to be mentioned in any writings about him?  When exactly did the state artists, presumably Gauri and Kanthimati, stop performing, and why?  I'll add that to my neverending backlog of things to research and post about. :)

Sources (I tried a standardized footnote style this time...):

1. Administration Report for 1935-36 (Baroda). "Chapter II: The Diamond Jubilee of His Highness the Maharaja Saheb's Reign."
2. Campbell-Johnson, Alan.  Viscount Halifax: A Biography.  1941.
3. Gaekwad, Fatesinghrao P.  Sayajirao of Baroda: The Prince and the Man.  1989.
4. Panemanglor, Krishnarao N. The Viceregal Visit to Baroda 1926. 1927.

5. Ramusack, Barbara N.  The Indian Princes and their States.  2004.
6. Sergeant, Philip W.  The Ruler of Baroda: An Account of the Life and Work of the Maharaja Gaekwar.  1928.
7. Singh, Nagendra K.  Divine Prostitution.  1997.

Bharatanatyam in Sri Lankan Sinhalese Films and in Sri Lanka

June 24, 2014, 9:17 pm

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While on a zealous search to see what kinds of dance could be found in the cinema of Sri Lanka, India's island neighbor to the south, I was completely perplexed when I stumbled onto this Bharatanatyam-based dance in the 1965 Sinhala film Hathara Maha Nidhanaya:

Start :53

My cursory understanding of the history of the ethnic Sinhala-Tamil conflict and civil war in Sri Lanka made the dance unfathomable to me! The film is in Sinhala, the language of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority of Sri Lanka, and the staging of the dance is clearly referencing national pride given the image of the Sri Lankan island and national flags (different from today's style) placed prominently in the background and acknowledged by the dancer (and very reminiscent of many Indian film dances in front of the image of India, such as Vyjayanthimala in Penn). The audience of young, mixed-gender school children indicates a respectable, common setting, and the dancer's clothing is very Sinhalese in style (according to a Sinhalese acquaintance).

Despite all of this, the dancer is performing choreography inspired by Bharatanatyam, the dance associated with the minority Tamils, along with what appears to be some Kuchipudi influence such as the backwards anchitam movement of the feet on the heels! And to add to the confusion, the jewelry she wears with her Sinhalese dress is the traditional Hindu temple jewelry of a Bharatanatyam dancer. I would have expected to see Bharatanatyam dance in the less-developed Tamil-language cinema of Sri Lanka, but I certainly would have never imagined seeing it in a Sinhala film and especially not in a scene depicting national pride which by that time was apparently well-equated with the majority Sinhalese Buddhist culture and Kandyan dance. Browsing through the rest of the film, the dancer only seemed to appear in this song and there was no indication she had any context in the film that would explain her dance and its stylistic choices.

My reaction to the film dance was largely informed by Susan Reed's insightful and clearly-written book on Kandyan dance history, Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics. She provides some fascinating nuggets about the history of Bharatanatyam dance in Sri Lanka and about Sinhalese-Tamil relations. Inspired by the "revivalist" movements in India, Sri Lankan Tamils took an early interest in and propagated traditional dance and music long before the Sinhalese. A decade before Rukmini Devi's Kalakshetra came into existence, the Parameshwara Academy (now the University of Jaffna) was established in Jaffna, Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was known then) in the 1920s and Bharatanatyam and Carnatic music were taught. Into the 1930s, Bharatanatyam was heavily developed by Tamils in Jaffna and Tamils "often claim[ed] cultural superiority over the more anglicized Sinhala elite." Meanwhile, Indian dance forms were very popular in the 1930s and 40s with many famous Indian dancers visiting Ceylon and many Sri Lankans traveling to Tagore's Shantiniketan, and it took some time for the Sinhalese to awaken to and fully accept their artistic traditions. The Sri Lankan dancer Chitrasena was highly-influential and reminds one of Uday Shankar in the way he synthesized elements of Sri Lankan, Indian, and Western dance styles into "oriental ballets," though he later focused primarily on the adaptation of Kandyan dance to the stage. Slowly Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka became "polarized" and soon "both communities were engaged in cultural revivals" with dance playing a key role in the construction of "traditional" culture and ethnic pride.

Likely Nittawela Guneya (source: Ebay)

It wasn't until after Sri Lankan independence from the British in 1948 that the Sinhalese elite began seriously pursuing the preservation and construction of traditional Sinhalese dance as an ancient Aryan creation distinct from Tamil culture. Sinhala-Tamil tensions worsened after this time when a Prime Minister was "elected on a platform of promoting Sinhala Buddhist culture" which was upheld by successive leaders and led to discrimination against Tamils who soon protested leading to riots and an eventual long-standing civil war. Kandyan dance was heavily supported by the Sinhala Buddhist government as the country's national dance, and it played "a critical role in the construction of Sri Lanka as a nation of Sinhalas." Susan outlines the intriguing way in which Kandyan dance evolved from ritual practice, and the process in many ways echoed how Bharatanatyam was disconnected from its traditional practitioners of low social standing and classicized and institutionalized as a respectable form of "high culture." Obviously, for a much more nuanced discussion, go read Susan's book!

But Susan Reed limited her discussion of Bharatanatyam in Sri Lanka to the indigenous Tamil community of the northern Jaffna region and her descriptions led to me believe that the dance form was not practiced or patronized anywhere else. In Susan's book, Kandyan dance was constructed as the main dance of the Sinhalese which was heavily supported by the state, so it seemed natural that Bharatanatyam would not be something remotely practiced by the Sinhalese especially in an official capacity. So, confusion remained about the Bharatanatyam in the Hathara Maha Nidhanaya film dance above. After all, it was filmed in the mid-1960s by which time Sinhala-Tamil tensions were well-inflamed and Sinhalese communalism was running full steam ahead. What was I missing?

Hints came from a summary of Indian dance scholar Janet O'Shea's paper "From Temple to Battlefield: Bharatanatyam in Sri Lanka." O'Shea writes, "Meanwhile in Colombo, Sinhalese have adopted the form as a marker of respectable female identity. This suggests that Bharatanatyam, refigured in India in the early twentieth century as an emblem of Indian national identity, plays several, conflicting roles in the formation of Sri Lankan national identities." While I haven't been able to track down O'Shea's paper, I noticed the claim of Bharatanatyam's popularity among the Sinhalese even today was supported by a peek at the website of the pre-eminent University of Visual and Performing Arts in Columbo which offers degrees not only in Sinhalese dance forms but also Bharathanatyam and Kathak, noting "Indian dances, which consist of a large number of dance forms, have become highly popular in Sri Lanka." But my incredulous reaction remained, especially with no explanation for the "why" and "how" such a thing could happen amidst such tense ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

Answers finally came from Ahalya Satkunaratnam's article "Staging War: Performing Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka" and the 2009 dissertation it was derived from, Moving Bodies, Navigating Conflict: Practicing Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Ahalya writes:

"The flourishing of Bharata Natyam [in Colombo] was nurtured through the understanding that the new dance “tradition” emerging in India was a tool for demonstrating a rejection of Western influence in Sri Lanka, which was valuable as anticolonial sentiment grew in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Bharata Natyam, predominantly studied and performed by women, became a means for the preservation and promotion of culture and ethnic identity." 

"Since dance was not a means of fashioning Tamil identity, it did not initially fit within the criteria of Tamil women’s duties and expectations. However, one emerging dance style, Kalakshetra Bharata Natyam, the style taught through the Kalakshetra dance school that was founded by Indian dancer Rukmini Devi Arundale in the early twentieth century, helped to significantly shape Bharata Natyam as a reputable practice in Colombo. In brief, Rukmini Devi’s approach to women’s decorum, her stance against “vulgarity” in dance practice, and her rooting of the tradition in the ancient past all fit well with the gendered and cultural concerns of Navalar’s [Arumuga Navalar's] social reformation movements and the developing anticolonial movements. Kalakshtetra Bharata Natyam reconstituted as a timeless, untainted, and ancient practice would become a tool against the feared cultural dilution that came with British colonialism" 

"Kalakshetra Bharata Natyam’s approach to the dance as constructed in the distant past also was attractive to the diverse community of Colombo. It removed Bharata Natyam from being identified as a local Tamil tradition and positioned the practice instead as a universal Indian tradition, relevant to the subcontinent and the world through its association with Sanskrit and hence with antiquity, which attracted students from outside the religious tradition of Hinduism and the Tamil language. This opened doors for Sri Lankan students of various backgrounds to identify with the dance practice, and even Buddhist Sinhala students took up the form quite early in Bharata Natyam’s emergence. The dance, at its adoption in Sri Lanka in the early twentieth century, was already a multicultural phenomenon."

"In Colombo, Bharata Natyam grew in popularity after the establishment of the two dance academies founded by the two premier Tamil women's cultural organizations. In 1945, Saiva Mangaiyar Kalaham established the School of Music and Dance, and in 1948, The Ceylon Tamil Women's Union established the Kalalaya School of Music and Dance. Both schools taught the Kalakshetra Bharata Natyam style of the dance form. Soon after in November 1950, Bharata Natyam, along with other dances, was presented on a national platform at the first "All-Ceylon Dance Festival." 

"While Kalakshetra emerged strongly in Colombo, in other parts of the Sri Lanka, specifically Jaffna, Vazhavoor Ramiah Pillai's style was prevalent in the early years of the island-nation's Bharata Natyam practice. Vazhavoor style emerged in the largely Tamil community through the influx of Bharata Natyam movies, starring the beautiful and renowned Baby Kamala and Vijayanthi Mala Bali. The interest in Bharata Natyam through Tamil films was limited to a Tamil community, but Kalakshetra Bharata Natyam, through its universal, Sanskritic approach appealed to a diverse community in Colombo." 

Ahalya goes on to explain that while Kalakshetra put forth a very specific way of understanding and contextualizing Bharatanatyam, in Sri Lanka, "a range of understandings of the dance form circulated, complicating the accepted origins of the form and its cultural significance"and "the dance practice was assigned meanings and identities that resonated with ethnic and political significances."At the 1950 All-Ceylon Dance Festival, Bharatanatyam was featured along with other Indian dance forms in the "Oriental" dance category alongside two other categories, "Western" and "Kandyan." A second way of referring to Bharatanatyam dance was "Indian." This was utilized by the press in writing about the festival but also by politicians as a way to infer "foreign" and "not Sri Lankan" amidst a movement to make "Indian Tamils" (brought to Sri Lanka as laborers during the British colonial period, distinct from "Sri Lankan Tamils" who were there before colonialism) leave the country. A third way of referring to Bharatanatyam was "Indigenous" as utilized by the Sri Lankan government when it set aside funding for the "advancement of indigenous dancing" of which Bharatanatyam was a part. This usage implied that Bharatanatyam was "part of Sri Lankan heritage accessed through Tamil traditions." It seems that the discourse about Bharatanatyam in Sri Lanka shifted after the civil war. Ahalya notes that, "Tamil practitioners' experiences of the riots and in life in Colombo after the official start of the war in the early 1980s inscribed the dance form with significance as a Tamil cultural practice, reflective of the Tamil people, their contribution to the state and their survival in difficult circumstances."

Speaking of the difficulty in writing about Sri Lanka's history and politics, Ahalya writes,"...sectarian politics pervade the country's history and daily life experiences in Colombo. Similarly, the history of the island and the experiences of people on it are as contested as the warring parties that are presently fighting." And I would say that, clearly, the history of Bharatanatyam in Sri Lanka and its varied discourses show how it is similarly contested and complex and remains so today. 

A Search for Identity...

So who was the mystery woman dancing in Hathara Maha Nidhanaya? While I came up empty handed in trying to answer that question, my research provided a lot of interesting information that compliments the points in Ahalya's research.

The uploader of the Hathara Maha Nidhanaya dance identifies the dancer as Rangana Ariyadasa, but that is certainly a mistake. Rangana Nawodini Ariyadasa (Udayakumara) currently teaches Bharatanatyam at the eminent University of the Visual and Performing Arts in Columbo, but judging from her picture she is obviously much too young to be the dancer in Hathara Maha Nidhanaya—she was probably not even born in 1965! Rangana learned Bharatanatyam at Kalakshetra and unlike some other Sinhalese dancers she says that"Bharatha dance is a Tamil art form...I won't adapt it to to suit the Sinhala culture."

Rangana's mother,Padmini Dahanayake (Ariyadasa), was not only the first Srilankan Sinhalese to graduate in Bharatanatyam from Kalakshetra but also an actress and dancer in Sri Lankan films in the 1950s and 60s starting with a dance sequence in the 1955 film Sadasulang filmed in Chennai while she was studying at Kalakshetra at age 12. And she also choreographed a number of film dance sequences! But alas, once I looked at the photos of her and her film dance below, it was clear that the distinctively-nosed Padmini Dahanayake was not the same as the mystery dancer:

Here are a couple photos of Padmini Dahanyake in comparison to the mystery film dancer:

Top: Unknown film dancer Bottom: Padmini Dahanayake

Researching Padmini Dahanayake's film dances led to another rare find—a second example of some Bharatanatyam-inspired filmi moves in the film Daruwa Kageda (Sinhala, 1961) released four years before Hathara Maha Nidhanaya. The fast footwork at the beginning and the adavu-inspirations at 1:50 and 2:23 are clearly taken from Bharatanatyam. But Padmini Dahanayake's distinctive nose at certain angles makes it clear that she is not the same woman as the mystery film dancer.

Miranda Hemalatha

Miranda Hemalatha seemed another promising match at first. She was, like Padmini Dahanayake, a Sri Lankan Sinhalese woman who learned Bharatanatyam first at Rukmini Devi's institution Kalakshetra, which she recalls as a negative experience, and then under Guru Adyar Lakshman. Miranda then returned to Sri Lanka in 1966 and became a very important governmental figure in dance education advancing to become the first Director of Aesthetic Education in 1984. According to an article at The New Indian Express, it is Miranda's doing that, "in Sri Lanka today, Bharatanatyam is almost as “Sinhalese” as it is “Tamil”, and is as popular among Sinhalese girls as it is among the Tamils." But a quick look at a photo of her revealed another disappointment in my search to identify the mystery film dancer.

Leela Samson recalls a number of Sinhalese and Tamil Sri Lankans who studied at Kalakshetra from the 1940s to the 1960s. Speaking of Miranda, Leela remarked that she "has stood out not only for her devotion to tradition, but for her courageous and consistent efforts to add a Buddhist and Sinhalese flavour to an art form thought to be inextricably tied to Hindu religion and to the Tamil and Sanskrit languages. Her success is evident not just in the number of Sinhalese girls, who have taken to the art form, but in the use of Sinhala songs and Sinhala-Buddhist themes in their performances these days."

In an interview, Miranda describes the changes the changes she made to Bharatanatyam dance: “...I found that Sinhalese audiences at Bharatanatyam performances got bored, because they could not understand the songs and gestures. The Sinhalese identify themselves with the North Indian culture, and are far removed from Tamil culture and the Tamil language. I concluded that if I was to make any headway as a Bharatanatyam teacher in Sri Lanka, I had to make the art form relevant for the Sinhalese. I decided to introduce Sinhala songs and choreograph movements, while being within the set Bharatanatyam format.” It is interesting to compare this view with a teacher like Rangana Ariyadasa who feels that any alteration to the dance form is unacceptable.

A distant possibility for the identity of the mystery dancer was Kamala Johnpillai (aka Johnpulle) "who was the first Sri Lankan who entered the Kalashethra in India, in 1945 and returned to Sri Lanka after four years training"(Daily News). According to Ahalya, Kamala Johnpillai was a Tamil Christian which explains Padmini Dahanayake's claim to be the first Sri Lankan Sinhalese to graduate from Kalakshetra. I was extremely delighted to find at the online noolaham.org archive a scan of the 1998 Golden Jubilee Souvenir of the Kalalaya School of Music and Dance which revealed not only that Kamala Johnpillai was an eminent teacher there, especially in the 1950s, but also featured lots of old rare photographs and listed many names of dance students, teachers, and other important women. It's a great resource for those studying the history of the Sri Lanka Tamil Women's Union and Tamil women and Bharatanatyam dance in Sri Lanka. But the picture of Kamala Johnpillai did not look like a match.

Portions of an interview of Kamala's as excerpted in Ahalya's dissertation provide a personal perspective on Ahalya's assertion that "Kalakshetra Bharata Natyam's pan-Indic and Sanskritic approach was attractive to the diverse ethnic population in Colombo.""My dancing career has taught me,"said Kamala, "that all religions teach us all to love God. The praises sung to the divine are all the same. I worship the Thipam with devotion at a dance recital. It is all an expression of devotion to the Divine. Classical Dancing and I believe all art forms cut through adroitly all barriers such as creed, race and caste and makes us all one in our devotion to the art forms and our devotion to God."

Looking into the background of another possible match for the mystery dancer, Tirupurasundari Yoganantham (aka Thiripurasundari Yoganantham), revealed some fascinating information and photos about the Vazhuvoor style of Bharatanatyam that flourished in the Jaffna region. Tirupurasundari learned Bharatanatyam under Vazhuvoor Ramaiah Pillai, the eminent guru of the great Kamala! She then became the principal and chief Bharatanatyam instructor of the school Kalaimanram established in 1958 in Jaffna by her father and inaugurated by Vazhuvoor Ramaiah Pillai himself. The school shifted to Colombo in 1987. (Daily News.lk, Kalaimanram.info). The Kalaimanram website has some rare photos of Vazhuvoorar (as he was called) in Sri Lanka as well as Tirupurasundari that I've included here—once again, it is clear that she is not the mystery dancer! While that is a let down once again, the photos and descriptions suggest that Vazhuvoorar spent quite a bit of time in Sri Lanka, something I've not heard much about previously. I would love to know more about this and how Kamala was involved!

Still searching for an identity match, I wondered if the mystery film dancer was perhaps one of the film actresses that Padmini Dahanayake was said to have trained, but a comparison of their photos quickly ruled out all but one. Jeewarani (nope), Clarice De Silva (nope), Sabitha Perera (likely not, seems to be a 1980s actress), late Sandya Kumari (nope) and Vigitha Mallika." Vigitha (aka Vijitha) Mallika is listed as the main actress for Hathara Maha Nidhanaya, but this photo (and watching her in the film) makes it clear she is not the mystery dancer. Another article referenced a Girly Gunawardane who had a dance sequence in the film Prema Tharangaya in 1953 and acted in a number of Sinhala films including Hathara Maha Nidhanaya, but this picture rules out that possibility yet again! So...I gave up on my search for now. If anyone knows who the mystery dancer might be I am all ears!

As I wrote this post I realized that Sri Lanka is another place and archive search term that can yield rare "Indian" and diasporic dance finds. For example, that well-known image on the left was actually taken in Sri Lanka not India as it has sometimes been mistakenly labeled. Think of all the students who learned Bharatanatyam in the Jaffna region starting in the 1920s and images or film recordings that might have been taken. Quite a few photographs of Ceylonese nautch dancers from the colonial period are available, but I wonder what other finds out there await!


Sources:

• O'Shea, Janet. "From Temple to Battlefield: Bharatanatyam in Sri Lanka." Conference paper summary. (Appears to be similar to an article by the same name in volume 13 of Pulse magazine according to a reference in Ann David's article).
• Reed, Susan A. Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics. Book. 2010.
• Satkunaratnam, Ahalya. "Staging War: Performing Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka."Dance Research Journal. April 2013.  
• Satkunaratnam, Ahalya. Moving Bodies, Navigating Conflict: Practicing Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Phd Diss. 2009.

Further reading:

• "Celluloid Nationalism in Sri Lanka" - Groundviews.org
• "Sri Lanka Cinema: Surveillance and Survival"
• "Book on South Indian Influence on Early Lankan Cinema" - Sunday Times
• National Film Corporation of Sri Lanka
• www.films.lk - Sinhala Cinema Database
• Native Dance 1929 (BritishPathe) - Video of what appears to be Kandyan dance; also seen in Indian Peeps (1930)

Related Posts:

The Nrityagram Dance Ensemble in Utah! - Discussion about their performance with the Chitrasena Dance Company.
Indian Dances in Western Films About India: Part 3 (Orientalism) - Includes a nondescript "Oriental" dance by Miriam Pieris who was also known as Miriam de Saram and was apparently the "first Ceylonese woman to study, master, and perform publicly, both Kandyan and South Indian dancing."
Film Dances/Appearances of Ram Gopal and Extant Dance Footage - Features a Kandyan dance in a Hollywood film choreographed by Ram Gopal

Manipuri Dance in Indian Cinema and the Beautiful Dances in Sanabi (1995, Manipuri)

August 10, 2014, 7:35 pm

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Reading about Manipuri Dance in books about Indian dance, especially those written pre-1990s, has always been quite entertaining to me. There is a distinct exoticised "othering" seen in statements like "the Meities, a people of slight build with slanting eyes...are a deeply sensitive and artistic race..." [8] and "The country abounds in myth and legend...since earliest times, the people have shown an innate love and a gift for expressing their emotional and religious fervour through dance and music." [2]. The dances are described in glowing but simplistic descriptions laden with pleasantries.

A refreshingly-different perspective on Manipuri dance is offered by Faubion Bowers in his 1953 book The Dance in India. Faubion had an interest in Asian dance and drama and was one of the early and well-known Asian Studies writers starting in the 1950s (and was instrumental in the preservation of Japanese Kabuki). In this excerpt Faubion departs from most other writers of his day and argues that "Manipuri dance" as it was known outside of Manipur at that time and as popularized relatively early by renaissance man Rabindranath Tagore was a complete misrepresentation, and of excited interest to this blog he also covers its popularity and misrepresentation in Indian cinema:

“[Rabindranath] Tagore hoped that by transplanting the dance from Manipur to India proper he would have the secret of regenerating dance throughout all India.... Shortly after his visit, Tagore installed a dance teacher from Manipur at Shantiniketan, an all-India school of arts in Bengal. Apparently Tagore was too definite about the use he wished to make of Manipuri dancing and too opinionated as to what he thought the art of dance should be in general. He selected bits and pieces of the teacher’s instruction and molded them to fit his own romantic dance-dramas. By simplifying the dance he made it possible for his students to be dancers and brought the art well within their reach. What became known as “Manipuri Dancing” was actually this Tagorean simplification and its latitude of interpretation. During this arid period of India’s recent dance history, this Manipuri-cum-Tagore style swept the country. People responded to its soft, flowing, unintellectual, and restful style. Mathematics and perfectionism in classical dancing had until then precluded the entry of amateurs into the dance field. Tagore’s Manipuri dancing filled a vacuum and answered the cry of amateurs.

Morality also played a part in the easy acceptance of this style of dancing. The stigma on India’s classical dances was still heavy; Manipuri dancing was completely new and unknown. There were no preconceived prejudices against it, although had people understood many of the movements or known the inner nature of Manipuri dancing, they certainly would have developed a reaction against its eroticisms. Sarojini Naidu, that grand old lady of Indian politics, made dance history when, after the performance of Amubhi Singh, one of the first Manipuris to perform outside Manipur, she publicly exclaimed, “Here is a dance with no crude form of movement; a mother may see it with her son.” The amateur was now, with her blessing, safe from attack on moral grounds.

Sinuous curves, flowing turns, hoop-skirt costumes, and snaky arm wriggles which passed as Manipuri dancing invaded the movies and almost dislodged Kathak from its senior position there. Year after year Tagore’s school turned out graduates. Even some international artists, whose standard ought to have been higher, continued the perpetuation of this charming deceit. In that period of drowning, perhaps India’s art had to clutch at any straw. All India became aware of Manipuri dancing. No artist or critic dared ignore it. Some dancers even specialize in its style to the exclusion of all else.

The fact is, oddly enough, that the style of dancing has no historical basis. It has only the most tenuous connection with Manipuri dancing itself, and in Manipur, when films of Indian dancing are supposed to represent Manipuri dancing, the audience rather cruelly roars with laughter. The myth is perpetuated for two reasons. No dancer of India has ever taken the trouble to study in Manipur. Secondly, the few Manipuris who have come to India as drummers or teachers are in so precarious a financial position that they are at the mercy of their students. They themselves call the dancing the teach “Oriental”; but the public continues to regard it as “Manipuri.” Were the dance of Manipur inferior to its paste diamond, which sells so well, such as state of affairs would be justifiable. It is, however, in every way superior to its humbug. The dance which inspired Tagore to bring Manipuri into the open world,  the dance whose imitation is mimicked the length and breadth of India and even abroad, remains locked within its lush and fertile valley."

Faubion's perspective is certainly quite negative, and his assertion that "no dancer of India has ever taken the trouble to study in Manipur" seems odd given that the well-known Jhaveri sisters of Gujarat have said they studied Manipuri dance in the state of Manipur in the late 1940s. But Faubion's viewpoint offers a counterbalance to what seemed to be an incorrect assessment and misrepresentation of the dance at that time, and my guess is he was probably right!

Ksh. Ibetombi and Louise, 1957 (src)

Another outsider who was concerned about the misrepresentation of Manipuri dance in those days was Louise Lightfoot of Australia. In her 1958 book Dance-Rituals of Manipur, India, she writes, "Many fine books have been written about the Dances of India both by Indians and Westerners; but invariably the chapters or paragraphs about Manipur have been both inadequate and incorrect." Louise stayed in Manipur for two years to write more accurate information about Manipuri dancing, and while in her book she focuses mostly on descriptions of the dances' rituals and history, she writes in an earnest way that for the most part sees the Manipuri people as human beings, not strange subjects to be studied and written about from afar. Speaking about the influence of film dance, she writes, "Mixed dances, in imitation of Indian cinema dances, are common in Imphal today, and unattractive hybrid compositions are frequently announced from the stage as "Bharatha Natya" or "Kathakali" because no one in the audience has ever seen these great arts of India or can criticize the announcements."

While writings about Manipuri dance and history are much improved in recent decades, one still gets the feeling that some writers still approach Manipuri dance as an "other" that doesn't deserve the same coverage as other dance forms. In her 1993 review of the book Dances of Manipur: The Tradition edited by Saryu Doshi, dancer-scholar Uttara Asha Coorlawala rightly calls out E. Nilkantha Singh for his "patronizing colonial tone" in his choice of words to describe the Meitei's religious beliefs and his privileging of Hindu over Meitei practices. Uttara defty notes that the book "bears witness to the hollowness of describing deeply felt intimate relationships with movement in an alien language to an alien culture."

Manipuri Dance in Indian Cinema

While I am just a beginner in understanding the nuances and movement vocabularies of dances as found in Manipur, it seems quite obvious that Manipuri dance as represented in Indian cinema is particularly unfaithful to the source, even more than other classical dance forms. After watching some authentic, real-life footage of Manipuri dance (such as the lovely Bimbavati Devi or this compilation of Darshana Jhaveri's group) the "Manipuri" dances found in the rest of Indian cinema seem wholly unsatisfying caricatures of the real thing.

Though a number of dance forms with varied movement vocabulary fall under the moniker "Manipuri Dance," the most developed and "classical" forms are the lasya-oriented Ras (aka Raas, Rasalila, Ras Leela) dance dramas and the Sankirtan with its energetic drum and cymbal-based choloms. For many people, Manipuri dance is synonymous with the image of a female dancer in the glittering stiffened skirt costume of the Ras and this seems to be the most popular representation of "Manipuri dance" in Indian cinema with an occasional male Krishna character thrown in for good measure. But the film dances only depict the most serene and contained movements of the gopis in the Ras and completely ignore the wider variety of movements that can get quite energetic especially in the dancer depicting Krishna.

Sandansha Hasta in Manipuri

Despite restricting the movements to such a narrow category, the film dances seem to confuse simplicity with sloppiness, and the choreographers seem to have been fooled into believing they have captured the essence of the dance. Grace and poise is abundant, but it isn't channeled into precise or codified movement and looks disorganized and amateurish compared to the real thing. In the slow movements of the female gopis of the Ras, the hands scoop and wrap in and out, the hands are often held in the Sandansha (aka Samdamsha) gesture, the legs bend gently at the knees and pivot in spins, and the hands sweep in controlled arcs and angles. [Note: Regarding the identification of the Sandansha hand gesture/khutthek, I only found two publications (Bhavnani's book and a Marg issue) that named the hasta as such, and this video demonstration uses a different name, so I'm still not confident regarding what the gesture is called today.] It looks deceptively simple at first glance, but all the movement is done intentionally and in constant flow. It would be quite easy to simply feign elements of these movements, but the film dances incorporate hardly any of these specifics.

The bad imitations would seem excusable if the film Manipuri dances were choreographed by dance directors unstudied in the form, but as you will see below, real-life Manipuri gurus were often associated with the dances. I think Faubion Bowers' views regarding the alterations to the form made by outsiders like Rabindranath Tagore (which I think can also be applied to Uday Shankar) and the economic needs of the gurus explains a lot of it. And certainly the goal of most popular film dances is not to present an authentic dance form but rather entertain viewers, and with Manipuri dance there seems to be the additional benefit of adding some exotic "culture" from a far-flung, "mysterious" part of India.

To illustrate how badly Manipuri dance fares in Indian cinema, watch the exquisite dances from the Manipuri film Sanabi below, and then compare them to everything else in Indian cinema in the playlist that follows. 

The Manipuri film Sanabi

It is no surprise that the best representation of Manipuri dance in Indian cinema I was able to find is in a Manipuri-language film made in Manipur by and for Manipuris. Sanabi ("The Grey Mare," 1995), which won the National Award for "Best Feature Film in Manipuri," revolves around a Manipuri classical dancer, Sakhi, and a man who pursues her affections. Sakhi's dances with her troupe in both practice (yay! Manipuri practice dances!) and stage performance are featured multiple times throughout the film in short sequences with minimal editing. The performances are taken straight from life and are filmed head-on which lends them a sort of sacredness and peace that I find engaging to watch. Most exciting of all is the range of dances and costumes displayed with authenticity. In addition to a Ras dance (depicting the Maha Ras subgenre with Krishna and Rhadha authentically portrayed by children), the viewer also gets to see two practice scenes, a solo lasya-style dance, and most rare of all, a Lai-Haraoba dance! Luckily, Sanabi can be watched for free at the NFDC's Cinemas of India page. I'm not able to embed the film, so I've screencapped the dances below with the timestamps listed underneath. Also worth seeing is the traditional wedding at 55:16 in which the bride wears the customary Potloi dress!

Scenes pictured clockwise: 7:59 (Lai-Haraoba dance), 23:33 (practice scene), 25:40 (solo lasya dance), 31:15 ("Maha Ras"), 38:36 (practice scene)

Manipuri Dance in Non-Manipuri Indian Cinema

Here is a playlist of the other Manipuri film dances I was able to find in Indian cinema in chronological order. Two dances from Kalpana follow separately. I know there are more out there—feel free to send them my way and I'll add them to the playlist!

Kalpana - Alternate link

Alternate link

The Dancers and Gurus on Screen

While the Manipuri dances in the above playlist are almost all quite inauthentic, they are historically important because of who was captured on screen and who was associated with the dances. Eminent dancers of Indian classical dance forms were often seen on screen in the 1940-60s. While male gurus and nattuvanars were mostly involved behind the scenes in other Indian classical dance forms depicted in cinema, Manipuri dance was often depicted with real-life traditional gurus and male dancers dancing as themselves.

Sadhona Bose in Raj Nartaki

In Raj Nartaki (1941, aka "Court Dancer"), which seems to be one of the earliest surviving representations of "Manipuri dance" in Indian cinema, the main dancer and central character of the film was played by Sadhona Bose (1914-1973, aka "Sadhana") who was among the early upperclass/caste women who took to dance in Calcutta during the "dance revival" and was an important part of Manipuri/Tagore dance circles, theater, and Bengali cinema. She learned and performed Kathak and Manipuri dance, acted in Bengali films, and choreographed ballets—some of which were supervised by Rabindranath Tagore and others were adapted into or composed by her for cinema (such as the film Dahlia and the dance and "Broadway/Hollywood inspired Orientalist spectaculars" like the films Kumkum, Raj Nartaki, Shankar Parvati, and Vishkanya, some of which were directed by her husband Madhu Bose [6]. She seems to have been quite the giant in the Calcutta dance world in her day. How I wish I could see the dances in Kumkum, Shankar Parvati, and Vishkanya! Judging from posters/images of the films from Osianama's collection, only Raj Nartaki features Manipuri-inspired dance. Raj Nartaki is quite special because, as explained in the credits, it tells the “the story of the inhumanity of social barriers and of a Court Dancer in the Kingdom of Manipur in the early years of the 19th Century.” While dance direction is not mentioned in the credits, I think it's safe to assume that Sadhona choreographed or was an instrumental part of all the dance numbers. Despite the Manipur setting and Sadhona's direction, the dances seem inauthentic and fit more with general cinedance of the day. Thanks are due to Tom Daniel who has posted a beautifully-cleaned up version of the film.

Kalpana (1948, Hindi) is the most important example of Manipuri dance in film because it preserves on screen the images of real-life, male Manipuri gurus/artists on screen. The credits read "Manipuri dance by: Guru Amobi Singh" and "Assisted by: Mahabir Singh" ('assisted' was determined from a credits listing of Kalpana in Mohan Khokar's book), and since both men were part of Uday Shankar's school and/or troupe it makes sense that Shankar would want to feature them on camera as well as behind the scenes choreographing. Guru Amubi (aka Amobi) Singh"had impressive and far-reaching consequences...among the gurus who addressed themselves to effecting a resurgence in Manipuri dance.... Emphasizing the beauty of the lasya element in Manipuri dance, he created a definitive gharana (school) noted for its languid and lyrical grace. His association with Uday Shankar and his exposure to other forms of dance proved stimulating, and inspired him to develop techniques and themes suitable for the stage. His contribution played a significant role in transporting Manipuri dance from the sacred precincts of the temple to the proscenium of the auditorium..."(source unknown, Minai unable to locate again!)

Below is a screencap of the first male Manipuri dancer in Kalpana followed by two known photos of Amubi Singh. Despite the different nose shapes likely due to the different lighting, the similarities in the eyebrows, downturned mouth, and collarbone seem to confirm that the dancer on screen is Amubi Singh and he did not simply choreograph the number behind the scenes.

Left: Man in Kalpana  Middle: Amubi Singh (source: IGNCA) Right: Amubi Singh (source: [9])

This is a screencap of the second male Manipuri dance in Kalpana, and I assume that he is the Mahabir Singh of the credits who, according to Ruth Abrahams [1] performed a solo "Pung Chalam" [Cholom] number as part of Uday Shankar's real-life troupe at one time.

Might this be the Mahabir Singh of the credits?

In the closing song of Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje (1955), Gopi Krishna is in his element as a wild drum dancer joined by Sandhya with her cymbals, and the song later transitions to the grand finale featuring women in skirts with weighted bottoms that swirl, bounce, and unfurl with the dancers' movements in a strange inspiration from the Potloi costume. Although the film credits name Gopi Krishna as responsible for all of the film's choreography, director V. Shantaram has said, "Guru Bipin Singh had associated with me during the production of my film Janak Jhanak Payal Baaje and this happy association continued for quite some time" [7].

Alongside the early, great gurus Amudon Sharma, Atomba Singh, and Amubi Singh, Bipin Singh was one of the instrumental figures in the history of Manipuri dance whose style came to considered as a separate gharana/school. It was while directing film dances in Mumbai that Bipin met the Jhaveri Sisters from Gujarat who would become well-known Manipuri artists under his tutelage and collaboration. The collaboration was important to Manipuri dance research and the dance's translation to the stage and the development of innovations and a solo repertoire. Though Shantaram's quote makes it sound as if Bipin choreographed for many other of Shantaram's films, I was not able to find any dances in them after Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje that look like something Bipin would have been remotely involved in.

Sujata (1959)

In Sujata (1959, Hindi), the Sankirtan and Rasaleela dance styles are mixed together in a number performed by artists from the Little Ballet Troupe, the same group Simkie utilized in her choreography in the Awara dream sequence. The scene prior to the dance indicates by a wall poster that it is from Chandalika, a dance drama composed by Rabindranath Tagore. The Little Ballet Troupe has an interesting history. It was founded by choreographer Shanti Bardhan who had earlier learned Manipuri and Tipperah dance and had been part of Uday Shankar's school in Almora and the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA). In the film dance, at first I thought the male pung cholom dancer was Mahabir Singh as seen above in Kalpana, but as you can see below his face is clearly different from the man in Kalpana.  Thanks to S. Sudha for the tip about this film dance!

Not Mahabir Singh

Edit: After publishing this post, I found another example to add to the end of the playlist from the 1990 Bengali film Rajnartaki, and to my surprise the lead female dancer is Sudha Chandran! As you'll recall, she played herself in the films Mayuri/Nache Mayuri depicting her courageous story as a dancer who continued to perform with a prosthetic leg after enduring a horrific accident. Every so often I find another one of her film dances--she seems to have danced in quite a few!

Some film examples I was not able to find video of. Randor Guy mentions a Manipuri sequence along with Kathak and Punjabi sequences in the 1946 Tamil film Udayanan Vasavadatta. Rabindranath Tagore acted in and directed the silent film version of his play Natir Puja which released in 1932, and it is said to have an interpretive dance by one of the actresses. The prints were supposedly destroyed but a compilation of the surviving footage is available. Another film possibility I came across while researching my recent find of rare Balasaraswati photos was the still to the left of a Manipuri film dance starring Waheeda Rehman (link to larger original here)! Does anyone know what film it is from? I'm stumped...

Costumes in Film Manipuri Dances

The costume of Rhadha and the gopis in the Rasleela is collectively referred to as the Potloi and consists of the cylindrical Kumin or Phumila or Kumil skirt and the upper Poswan or Poswak skirt (I've read so many variations of the names!). The Poswan has apparently evolved from a draped, loose upper skirt into its present-day stiffened, ribbon-likeness—the photo to the left from the bookManipuri Costumes Through Ages illustrates the difference. I was surprised to find that all of the Rasleela-inspired Manipuri films dances in the playlist above feature the non-stiffened upper skirt. One would think the film dance costumers would be more interested in the spectacle of the more visually-arresting stiffened costume. Interestingly, the credits of Raj Nartaki name Sadhona Bose as the costume designer.

In Louise Lightfoot's 1958 book, she commented on changes that had been made to Manipuri dance at that time such as wearing the hair up instead of naturally down and the use of ankle bells which were unknown in Manipuri dance till then and are unnecessary. Speaking of the Ras, she wrote, "The choice of a heavy, stiffened skirt for Rhada and the Gopis was not a fortunate one. Though it looks most beautiful, its purpose of 'hiding the feet from Krishna', and its bell-like stiffness, effectively hide the graceful movements which the traditional Fanek revealed to perfection in the Lai Haraoba.... Never-the-less the beauty of the Ras costume for its own sake has caused it to become the most famous girls' dancing costume in India. Girls in every Indian state try their utmost to obtain a Ras costume...together with the Kathakali designs of Kerala, it is one of the most popular advertisements for catching the eye of foreign tourists..."

In the Ras, the dancer portraying Krishna wears a distinctive costume from the gopis. Pushpadhanu (1959, Bengali) is the only film dance I found that depicted Krishna with the Mukut crown of peacock feathers. Many other elements of the costume are missing, though I wonder if Krishna's costume has seen evolution over the last century as well. In fact, the subject of how Manipuri dance and costumes have evolved is begging for more study!

When a cinema dance strays from the Ras Leela formula for depicting "Manipuri dance," it generally skips to the opposite visual extreme and depicts the "rustic" Sankirtan dances like the pung cholom (drums) and kartal cholom (cymbals).

Kartal Cholom in Kalpana

The other genres of Manipuri dance seem to be absent from non-Manipuri Indian cinema. Since the goal seems to be spectacle or excitement, the Lai Haraoba and other dances featuring the sarong-like Phanek dress have likely never been depicted in cinema outside Manipur.

There is so much more about Manipuri dance that could be said! Discussing all the great gurus and dancers, a look at the wide variety of "Manipuri dance," investigating when the dance was first presented on stage and how it evolved to be "classical," Bishnupriya vs. Meitei culture, along with exciting tidbits like Bipin Singh's tour of Europe with Madame Menaka, Louise Lightfoot's tour with Manipuri dance Priyagopal Singh and Kathakali dancer Shivaram, Tagore's style of dance and "Rabindra Nritya" and "Rabindra Sangeet"...I could go on and on, but those things will have to wait for a possible future post (a Rabindra Nritya one is in the works!).

Cited Sources:

1. Abrahams, Ruth. The Life and Art of Uday Shankar. PhD Diss. 1985.
2. Bhavnani, Enakshi. The Dance in India. 1965.
3. Bowers, Faubion. The Dance in India. 1953.
4. Coorlawala, Uttara Asha. "Review: The Classical Traditions of Odissi and Manipuri."Dance Chronicle. Vol 16, No. 2. 1993.
5. Lightfoot, Louise. Dance-Rituals of Manipur, India. 1958.
6. Rajadhyaksha, Ashish and Willemen, Paul. "Bose, Sadhona (1914-73)." Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema: New Revised Edition. (as reproduced at Indiancine.ma Wiki)
7. Shantaram, V. "Dr. V. Shantaram: Film Producer/Director."In Appreciation of Guru Bipin Singh. 1989.
8. Singha, Rina and Massey, Reginald . Indian Dances: Their History and Growth. 1967.
9. Marg A Magazine of the Arts. The Drum and the Cymbal, classical dances of Manipur. Vol. 41 Iss. 2. 1988.

General Sources:

• Bandopadhay, Sruti. "Manipuri Dance: A Lyrical Manifestation of Devotion."Dance Matters: Performing India on Local and Global Stages. 2010. 
• Singh, E. Nilkantha. Manipuri Dances. 1997.
• Singh, R.K. Singhajit. Manipuri. 2004.

More information on Manipuri dance:

• Sangeet Natak Akademi - "Fifty-Two Years of Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy"
• manipuridancevisions.com - Website of the ensemble and school of Manipuri dance founded by scholar Dr. Sohini Ray. Has some great info about Guru Bipin Singh and his dance style as well as Manipuri dance archives (books, manuscripts, dance and music recordings).
• manipurinartanalaya.org/ - Guru Bipin Singh's dance school website, also has photos and information on his wife Guru Kalavati Devi and daughter Bimbavati Devi.
• Mukherjee, Sumit. "Mystery of a Manuscript."The Telegraph. ("This curious case of a manuscript on Manipuri dance that Manipuris regard as an outright and clumsy forgery is an illuminating example of the Procustean framing of Manipuri culture for inclusion in an official modern Indian culture. It is also a throwback to the early 20th century when many of the Manipuri elite aspired to be a part of Indian culture.") 
• Rabindranath Tagore and His Influence in Bishnupriya Manipuri Society

Classical Dances in Recent Indian Films - Including Sattriya and Kootiyattam!

August 17, 2014, 4:45 pm

≫ Next: Remembering the Film Bharatanatyam of the Late Adyar K. Lakshman

≪ Previous: Manipuri Dance in Indian Cinema and the Beautiful Dances in Sanabi (1995, Manipuri)

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While I've been mostly looking back in history as I've blogged about Indian film dances for the past few years, a number of films have released in recent years with songs or scenes featuring classical dance forms. Having collected enough for a robust post and also making some great discoveries this weekend, I'm excited to take a break from research and share what the classical movie dance world has produced recently. I'm sure I've missed some—do let me know of any others!

Vara: A Blessing (2013, Coproduction) - Screened at various film festivals since it's debut but apparently not commercially released in theaters or on DVD, Vara: A Blessing has been described as "a visually stunning exploration of the cross between spiritual devotion and bodily temptation that incorporates hypnotic use of tradition Indian dance and music" and as a work "Accented by mesmerizing bursts of classical Indian dance, haunting vocals, and vivid Hindu fantasyscapes..." With choreography by the accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer Geeta Chandran, music by Nitin Sawhney, and sumptuous visuals and effects by the crew, the dances as seen in the few clips available online make the film an absolute must watch. It's not an Indian film since it's directed by the Bhutanese lama filmmaker Khyentse Norbu with help from various countried folk, but it is set in India and was made with many Indian actors, so it is perhaps a Bhutanese/Indian/international coproduction.

This is the clip that took my breath away and has me aching to watch the film. In it, the main character Lila (Odissi dancer Shahana Goswami) dances Bharatanatyam under the nattuvangam of her mother Vinata (Geeta Chandran), the village's last devadasi. Based on Variety's review of the film which describes how the tribal leader tries to "pimp out Lila" while finding a match for a woman's son, the man staring at her as she dances is likely either the son or the tribal leader. Like him, I can't keep my eyes away from Shahana's face which registers constant emotion and danger that is enhanced by the lighting design and shadows. The entire clip has an ominous, creepy tension. Thanks to Ragothaman for pointing out this clip from Chandran's Facebook page.

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Geeta Chandran is seen leading a Bharatanatyam group on stage in this clip which is filmed far opposite to the dark intensity of the clip above. According to an interview of Geeta's, the dancers are her students in Delhi.

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This "Bollywood-style" dance number seems to be portraying Lila's love for Bollywood dance moves as mentioned in a plot description, and it gives us a glimpse of how the film traverses reality and fantasy in bursts of color and special effects. It's bizarre, and I love it! According to the director, "The sequence of Lila dancing to the Bollywood music was there only to enhance sacredness and subtilty [sic] of the classical music and dance" (source).

Last, check out the trailer for a few more dance segments not seen in the above clips. This film has shot to the top of my "must see" list. Can you believe that back in April, the Tribeca Film Festival offered free limited-time online screenings of it and other films for a "web-based audience competition." It was up for two days and no one in Indian dance circles seems to have known about it! Let's hope it gets offered through another online film festival or site soon!

Natyanubhava (2013) - While this film is really a documentary and not a "feature film," it is filled to the brim with classical dance footage, and the recent posting of the 6-minute excerpt clip below on India's Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT)'s YouTube channel is worthy of celebration and recognition in this post! PSBT has also uploaded some other interesting excerpts from dance-related documentaries like From Sadir to Bharatanatyam and Mrinalini Sarabhai - The Artist and Her Art. Natyanubhava is the third directorial effort by Sharada Ramanathan who debuted in 2007 with Sringaram, the period film about devadasis that I've previously blogged about and that I'm still waiting to find good clips online of beyond the 60 seconds of footage seen at NDTV. A great review by Sunil Kothari is at Narthaki.com. UPDATE: The entire film has been uploaded in twoparts! Thanks to Ragothaman for the find!

Pole Pole Ure Mon (2011, Assamese) - A Sattriya dance in a film from Assam—a first on this blog! I found it by happening onto this profile of the Sattriya dance couple Dipjyoti-Dipankar which listed the film as presumably something they were involved with, and then when I watched the song "Proti Pole..." I knew that was it! Sattriya dance can be seen at the beginning, at 1:31, and at the end at 4:06. The costumes and dance appear to an authentic inspiration when compared to Sattriya dance clips like this one by IndiaVideo. While Assamese film choreographer Ashim Baishya is credited as having worked in the film according to this article, I think that he only did the more pop/Bollywood-style dances in the film.

Swapaanam (2014, Malayalam) - Before having seen this film's dances, I knew it was a must watch. First, the film"explores the pain and pathos of a temple drummer, destined to die like the flame of an oil lamp. Unni, played by the popular Jayaram, is a victim of jealousy and ego. As his life and passion for percussion begins to ebb away, the spirited Mohiniattam dancer Nalini (Kadambari) discovers the artistic excellence in him and together they traverse life, defying society and its systems". Awesome. Second, it was directed by Shaji Karun's who was responsible for the sensitive masterpiece Vanaprastham (1999) centered around Kathakali dancers. And third, "Swapaanam" translates to "The Voiding Soul" which sounds like the perfect movie to watch on a dark and gloomy night. Now having seen some clips of the film's dances, the excitement for this film remains despite the dances lacking a bit in the subtlety and serious execution of those in Vanaprastham. The trailer is a good watch, and here is a playlist of the two available song promo clips that show the dancing of Kadambari who is a trained Odissi dancer in real life (and there is a group practice clip too, yay for practice dances!).

Nottam (2005, Malayalam) - This is the first Kootiyattam film dance I've found for this blog! The woman dancing is Margi Sathi, "the leading female face of kootiyattam" who is also responsible for resuscitating Nangiarkoothu (and is featured in the Symphony Celestial Nangiarkoothu series). Like Vanaprastham and its focus on Kathakali dancers, Nottam revolves around hereditary dancers of Koodiyattam, a temple Sanskrit theatre dance drama form that is the oldest classical dramatic art form of Kerala. I am delighted to find that the entire film is posted on YouTube by AmritaTV! I've embedded it below, and it should begin with the first Kootiyattam performance in the film at 23:26 featuring Margi Sati and the veteran actor Nedumudi Venu. Just click on other parts of the timeline to also watch the Kootiyattam practice scene at 12:23 (yay!!), the hauntingly-beautiful, award-winning song "Melle" at 1:27:50, and the dramatic Kootiyattam performance at the end at 1:49:39 in which Nedumudi gets to shine.

Starts at 23:27




Other Film Classical Dances

Keeping up with all the latest films is hard! A big thanks to Ragothaman for his tips about the recent Tamil film dances which I never would have found otherwise. While I'm surely missing some, below is my playlist collection of classical dances in Indian films from the past few years in order from newest to oldest. I did sneak in some from 2004-6 which aren't really "recent," but I've never had the chance to feature them on the blog til now. Everything in this post is new to this blog, so I left out dances I've posted about previously (like Odissi dances in Odia and other films and the dances in Periyar, Sringaram, La Danse De L'Enchanteresse, Mizhikal Sakshi, Aaptharakshaka, Black Daliya, Namyajamanru, Uliyin Osai, Tamil Padam, Bhool Bulaiyya, Chandramukhi, and Banaras).  I also included three Mujras which is a rarity on this blog since I'm not a big Mujra fan. :) And I've tried my best to distinguish Kuchipudi from Bharatanatyam which I hope I'm getting better at. Following the playlist is the list of the films in the playlist with my comments; feel free to pop out the playlist in a new window and follow along, side-by-side:

Note: YouTube playlists on mobile devices may start 
at the beginning and not at the timestamps I set.
Playlist direct link

• Thirumanam Enum Nikkah (2014, Tamil) - Features playful group practice dancing inspired mostly by Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi. Love the peeking hands at 2:09 and the layered music! Hat tip: Ragothaman.
• Saivam (2014, Tamil) - Cute home dancing inspired by Bharatanatyam. Hat tip: Ragothaman.
• Dedh Ishqiya (2014, Hindi) - Features Kathak dancers and then Madhuri Dixit in a Mujra choreographed by Pandit Birju Maharaj. Not a fan of the electric guitar!
• Ithu Kathirvelan Kadhal(2014, Tamil) - Group Bharatanatyam practice in practice saris. Hat tip: Ragothaman.
• Rama Madhav (2014, Marathi) - Pair Saroj Khan and Aditi Rao Hydari for some Bharatanatyam in Sringaram and get magic, but pair the same team for a Mujra in Rama Madhav and you get a nightmare (ugh, that open mouth!).
• Pullipulikalum Aattinkuttiyum(2013, Malayalam) - Namitha Pramod performs three classical dances in a tourist boat in this film, and she had, unbelievably, never trained in dance before the film! She performs beautiful Mohiniattam abhinaya in the first clip, and then in the second clip, she performs Bharatanatyam and then at 3:43 dances Kuchipudi.
• Vishwaroopam (2013, Hindi) - Kamal Hassan returns to dance on the silver screen with choreography by Pandit Birju Maharaj. I find myself wanting to watch his students much more than him. :)
• Raanjhanaa (2013, Hindi) - Kathak by Sonam Kapoor who has trained in the dance form for years under Uma Dogra.
• Chennai Express (2013, Hindi) - Deepika Padukone dancing what looks like Kuchipudi-inspirations with some backup dancers.
• Kanna Laddu Thinna Asaiya (2013, Tamil) - A humorous practice scene!
• Iddarammayilatho (2013, Telugu) - White girls + comedy actor Brahmanandam + "classical dance" = giggles. Hat tip: Cinema Chaat.
• Rajjo (2013, Hindi) - A Mujra with Kangana Ranaut exuding absolutely zero charisma. She says she had "rigorous training" for the dance, ha!
• Lakshmi (2013, Kannada) - Terrible stage "Kuchipudi" obviously performed by a nondancer.
• Makaramanju (2011, Malayalam) - This film about the artist Raja Ravi Varma has Kathak-inspired dancing that is greatly improved when the male dancer briefly appears. At first I thought he was the fabulous Anuj Mishra, but I think he may be one of the film's choreographers, Madhu Gopinath or Vakkom Sajeev, who had previously choreographed for the film Rathrimazha. There are more dances in the film, but I am unable to find clips online.
• Mr. Perfect (2011, Telugu) - Kajal in a classical-inspired practice number that turns jazzy!
• Jeevana Jokali(2011, Tamil) - Solo "I'm trying to evoke classicism but have no idea what I'm doing" practice number.
• Subhapradam (2010, Telugu) - K. Vishwanath, the director of a slew of classical arts films in the 70s and 80s like Sankarabharanam and Saagara Sangamam/Salangai Oli, attempted a similar formula for Swarabhishekam in 2004 and Subhapradam in 2010, but the magic seems to be long gone. Subhapradam begins with a nice, authentic-leaning stage Kuchipudi dance in the first clip with a male dancer performing in the second half. In the second clip of the song "Thappatlo Thalalo," Mohiniattam, Kuchipudi, Bharatantayam, and Odissi dancers all filter in and out dancing movements inspired from their respective styles. In the third clip, the heroine performs frenetic dance loosely inspired from Mohiniattam. All the dances are said to be choreographed by hereditary Kuchipudi dancer Vedantam Venkatachalapathy who has the same lineage as Vedantam Sathyanarayana Sarma, Vempati Chinna Sathyam and film-director Vedantam Raghavaiah.
• Punyam Aham (2010, Malayalam) - Veteran actor Nedumudi Venu plays a Kathakali artist in this film. In the first clip he performs in closeup for a group a white tourists, and in the second clip a proper Kathakali performance can be seen. Hat tip: Liz.
• Nagavalli (2010, Telugu) - In the first clip is Bharatanatyam/Kuchipudi-inspired stage dancing that can't hold a candle to Lakshmi Gopalaswami and Anuj Mishra in the Kannada version Aptharakshaka which I previously blogged about. The less said about Anoushka's dance in the second clip, the better. The film is the sequel to the remake of the incomparable Manichitrathazhu.
• Enthiran (2010, Tamil) - A bit of robot classical dance choreographed by Prabhu Deva's assistant Vishnu master. :) I removed it from the playlist because it isn't playable outside of YouTube, but you can watch it here.
• Ama Bhitare Kichi Achi (2010, Odia) - Looks like I missed this Odissi stage dance in my post on Odissi dance in Odia films.
• Preesthe Preesthe (2009, Kannada) - A stage "Kuchipudi" dance by Prajana who has learned Bharatanatyam in real life.
• Sri Ramadasu(2006, Telugu) - Some pretty Kuchipudi-inspired dancing.
• Kalabham - (2006, Malayalam) - More pretty, energetic Kuchipudi-inspired dancing.
• Swarabhishekam (2004, Telugu) - A bit too old and dated for this list because it's at the 10-year mark, but it's worth a quick look since Subhapradam is in the list above. The first song has what looks like some decent Kuchipudi posing at the beginning and end (oh and the guy in the grey kurta? That's Sridhar!), but the second song has the dancers prancing about in costumes that do not match the vaguely-classical movements. The dances are choreographed by V. Seshu Parupalli (aka P.V. Seshu, Dance Master Seshu) who choreographed at least one dance each for Sankarabharanam, Saptapadi, Subhalekha, Salangai Oli, Ananda Bhairavi, Sruti Layalu, Swarnakamalam, Devasuram, and Mayuri (according to Rumya Sree Putcha's dissertation).
• M Kumaran S/O Mahalakshmi (2004, Tamil) - "Chennai Senthamizh" is dated, but it's a classic!

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Remembering the Film Bharatanatyam of the Late Adyar K. Lakshman

August 20, 2014, 8:31 pm

≫ Next: Found: Vyjayanthimala's Devadasi Dance in Piya Milan (Choreographed by V.S. Muthuswami Pillai)

≪ Previous: Classical Dances in Recent Indian Films - Including Sattriya and Kootiyattam!

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When I learned the sad news yesterday that the Bharatanatyam Guru Adyar K. Lakshman has passed away, my mind immediately went to his excellent choreography in Indian cinema. Since it still seems that not enough people are aware of it, I thought I would show his two film choreographies again here and honor his work which has been preserved in film for us to cherish all these years later.

I had first learned of Guru Lakshman's choreographies in cinema when I read the Sruti magazine profile on him in Issue 320 (excerpt here) that noted he "directed and choreographed dance sequences from three art films - Subba Sastri, Hamsageethe and Ananda Tandavam." While I have not been able to locate Ananda Tandavam, I was thrilled to learn this week that its dance starred Savithra Sastry in the lead and the film was supposedly in Tamil and released in 1987! If anyone has seen this dance or knows where to find a copy, please let me know!

Guru Lakshman's choreographies in Subba Sastri and Hamsageethe are, I would argue, among the absolute best (perhaps the best!) serious Bharatanatyam captured in Indian cinema. The treatment of the dances is very different from most other film classical dances with the minimal editing, equal focus given to expressive and pure dance, crisp and authentic lines and movements, and the extended length--all signs of intentional respect and care for the dance segments by the director and editor, and I'm sure Guru Lakshman was the core reason the dances turned out so well.

Subba Sastri (1966, Kannada, aka Subba Shastry) - I first blogged about this dance back in 2011 in my post about Kannada film dances, and it still remains among my top five classical dances ever filmed in Indian cinema. Lakshman's choreography is lit up on screen by the lead dancer whom I can't keep my eyes off of. I have long wondered who the dancers are--does anyone know? This dance conforms to a few conventions of standard film popular classical dance, but somehow it feels quite different. Unfortunately the print has some jumbled editing and portions that appear to have been lost or cut out. The entire movie was posted online in the spring.

Hamsa Geethe (1975, Kannada) - I was surprised to learn that VP and Shanta Dhananjayan were originally asked to choreograph the dances for this film, but when the shooting became delayed and the Dhananjayan's had to turn the offer down due to schedule conflicts, Adyar Lakshman was brought to Chitradurga to choreograph for the film. While I'm curious what the Dhananjayan's work would have looked like (perhaps a taste can be seen in VP's dance in Kann Sivandhal Mann Sivakkum), Lakshman's work was fantastic. Filmed at the Chitradurga Fort, the dance is a competition between a Tanjore Bharatantayam dancer (played by Jayalakshmi Eswar), who makes the challenge that the kingdom has no dancers equal to her, and a local Kuchipudi dancer Chandrasaani (unknown dancer). The credits also name Radhakrishna as a dance director, and I presume she choreographed for the Kuchipudi segment. The English subtitles, provided by my late dear friend Ramesh, really enhance the viewing of the Abhinaya for those of us who do not understand the lyrics. For more information on this dance and the film, please see my original post.

I am saddened that Guru Lakshman is no longer with us. I had hoped someday to find out more about his film choreographies and his experiences making them (and just why his film choreographies are so amazing), but it looks like those memories will now only live on in those he shared them with.

I will close with an homage video to Adyar put together by one of his students, Anandini Dasi, featuring many pictures of him that seem quite rare. The audio is of Adyar performing the nattuvangam for a Pushpanjali, and the crisp quality enhances its soul-stirring ambiance.

Found: Vyjayanthimala's Devadasi Dance in Piya Milan (Choreographed by V.S. Muthuswami Pillai)

August 9, 2013, 7:13 pm

≫ Next: Rabindra Nritya/Tagore Dances in Bengali Films

≪ Previous: Remembering the Film Bharatanatyam of the Late Adyar K. Lakshman

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Huge thanks are due to Mr. Naidu for uploading Vyjayanthimala's dance in the 1958 Hindi film Piya Milan (a dub of the 1956 Tamil film Marma Veeran) which was choreographed by the hereditary nattuvanar V.S. Muthuswami Pillai.  I had speculated in my recent post (part one) on Muthuswami's film choreographies that this dance would be as fabulous as his direction of Vyjayanthimala in Chittoor Rani Padmini—and how true that turned out to be!  But what stunned me most about the dance is that it appears to be a preserved example of the "Sadir" devadasi dance of yore known today as Bharatanatyam. It wasn't only the court setting and the costume but also the actual choreography and body language that signified this identification and caught my attention.

As I first watched the dance I could tell that something was different, and by the end I was struck by my reaction and the way I connected with the dance.  I couldn't quite articulate why I thought it was an example of devadasi choreography or what it was that made the viewing experience so different from watching Vyjayanthimala's Bharathanatyam in Chittoor Rani Padmini.  The dance had a certain je ne sais quoi that was unlike anything I'd seen before.  When I first covered the topic of Devadasi-Like Dances in Classic South Indian Films, I focused more on the trappings of the dance like the time period, physical setting, camera work, and patron-focus.  But I didn't have the knowledge to comment much on the actual movements and choreography.  Blogger RameshRam had helped me form a very general view of what made devadasi dance different from its reworked Bharathanatyam form—essentially a wider berth given to internalized skill/spontaneity/grace versus strict classicism/statuesqueness/set parameters.  But when I saw Vyjayanthimala's dance in Piya Milan, I knew that the subject was begging for further analysis and nuance.  None of the devadasi film dances I'd seen so far had charmed me in such an intense way! What was it that made two dance choreographies designed by the same talented nattuvanar feel so different?

In conversation with blogger RameshRam, I learned that he not only felt the same charm in viewing the dance but also articulated the differences instantly and provided a fascinating analysis.  Ramesh doesn't formally write much about dance, but he has a wealth of knowledge about Bharathanatyam and devadasi dance.  I invited Ramesh to share his views which I have edited slightly and provided screencaps for. Read on below to watch the two dances and read Ramesh's excellent piece and thought-provoking conclusion.

The "Devadasi" Dance in Piya Milan (1958)

The "Bharathanatyam" Dance in Chitoor Rani Padmini (1963)

Analysis by RameshRam:

Disclaimer:  I would like to disclaim any impression you may get from reading my post that because I like to see the devadasi STYLE of dance, I am somehow craving for a return of the devadasi SYSTEM and its related patriarchal and flesh-trading trappings. I advise people to show a certain amount of academic detachment while reading my views on the subject.

The same dancer (Vyjayanthimala) and the same dance choreographer (Isai Velalar V.S. Muthuswami Pillai), but what a difference!  These two clips are from within five years of one another and can be considered definitive of the two styles of classical South Indian dance as practiced before and after the Rukmini Devi reformation of the 1930-40s (the Piya Milan dance is definitive of Sadir or the devadasi dance, and the Chitoor Rani Padmini dance is definitive of the style that emerged as Bharathanatyam as practiced by upper-caste and non-traditional practitioners). Apart from the essential difference between classical dance (which usually has a knowledgeable and demanding audience) that Bharathanatyam was designed to be and the populist, people-pleasing classical/popular art form that Sadir had evolved into, there are specific and very telling differences between these two videos which were both choreographed and performed twenty years after the historical events creating Bharathanatyam.  I will try to describe the essential differences designed into these dances as well as some peculiarities that are historical in nature.

The significance of Muthuswami Pillai's choreography, as well as Vyjayanthimala's dance, is that they both straddled a unique time period in the history of South Indian classical dance. Muthuswami Pillai came from Vaitheeswaran Koil and was part of the dance teacher community who between the 1930s and the 1970s created the modern-day Bharathanatyam from the more erotic Sadir (devadasi dance).  Vyjayanthimala was born in 1936, learned dance from traditional practitioners before the Bharathanatyam take-over and was dancing traditional dance in the Mysore court by the mid-1940s.  Both Muthuswami Pillai and Vyjayanthimala were among those who brought the art form fame and 'respectability' as class taboos were left behind (not without hard feelings on many fronts) as the art carried on into independent non-feudal India. I see these two clips as a defining authorial comment on the changes these key players brought to the culture of South Indian dance.

General observations:

You will notice between the earlier clip and the later that the dance is presented more formally and with less personal connection between the dancer and the audience. The earlier clip shows Vyjayanthimala trying to seduce the audience with her charm into a relationship with the dancer through dress, accessories, gesture, and eye contact.  In the later clip, she is dressed to impress and to be definitive of a culture of dancing womanhood, but in her minimalist virtuosity doesn't deign to expect a reaction from the audience even if the audience is God.

Specific observations on each video:

Piya Milan - (Devadasi style) - The first thing you notice is Vyjayanthimala attracting attention toward her through soft hand and foot gestures intended to show beauty.  When the camera pulls out, you can see that she is dressed like a Kathak dancer but completely in South Indian dance attire (the Bharathanatyam costumes were formalized and made to look more like South Indian statuary as will be evident in the Chitoor Rani Padmini piece).  These earlier costumes were standard fare for devadasis dancing in the Chinna Melam where audiences were limited in number and private. Vyjayanthimala's hand and feet gestures have both a beautiful formalism as well as a lazy charm that is from the Sadir dance of that period.  At no point does she give the impression that she is trying to teach people about her culture or dance but is instead trying to show them a happy, prosperous, and good time.

The setting she is dancing in is also interesting.  She is surrounded by patrons who watch her admiringly and she never forgets that she is dancing to communicate to them.  She takes the time to add grace to what are essentially pure dance gestures so that when someone who has no prior knowledge of Bharathanatyam watches the dance they can only see a well-stitched together set of gestures of a graceful dancer.  The grammar of the dance takes a back seat to the beauty that the dancer imbues into the dance.  Her pure dance interludes are filled with very well-executed formalism, but in the overall structure of the dance they come across as interludes between her natya (drama) essays.  People who lamented in that time period that Sadir had descended into a crass, near-prostitution, salon-dancing style were perhaps oblivious to the fact that great dance teachers and dancers could create the kind of magic you see in the Piya Milan dance which is classy and seductive.

The entire effort seems geared towards creating a magical effect of storytelling from the dancer to each audience member—one at a time.  The sense of magic is created because of the personal connection established by the dancer with the patron.  For the patron, the rest of the audience has ceased to exist by the time the dancer has woven her web.

Chittoor Rani Padmini - In this Bharathanatyam piece, also choreographed by Muthuswami Pillai, you see a very different Vyjayanthimala.  Here the dancer not only has the straight-backed elegance of a trained Bharathanatyam dancer, but she also has the introspective austerity of gesture that a dancer trying to project her art as a definitive symbol of her culture would practice.  There is equal weight given to pure dance (which is straight-backed and well-executed) and natya (drama) which serves here to describe the complex compositional structure of the dance (perhaps this reflects the changed priority where Bharathanatyam dancers were more preoccupied with projecting the greatness of the dance and devadasis were more with entertaining their audience).

Vyjayanthimala is dressed and has the comportment of a temple statue from the Gupta Period, thus recalling the ancient natya shashtra traditions of Bharata Muni of yore.  Her expressions while being very expressive of the lyrics of the dance do not allow the dancer any additional leeway in communicating with the unseeing audience (she dances to the stone idol in devotion).  This does not mean that the dance is not expressive—rather like classical ballet the expressiveness of the dance is brought out by the formalist tropes that Bharatanatyam has evolved into from the highly-personal practitioners dance that was Sadir.

Conclusion:

So which dance was better?  The pre-evolution Sadir or the post-evolution Bharathanatyam? While it is understandable to ask a question like that, as someone watching YouTube clips 50 years after the fact, the answer is really meaningless.  I would like to see both kinds of dance practiced because they each have their personal voices imprinted deeply into what we can clearly see is a common tradition.  However, we find that one of these traditions is lost, perhaps forever, because of the way classical and popular dance forms evolved between the 1930s and the 1970s.  Both Muthuswami Pillai, who passed away in 1992, and Vyjayanthimala Bali, who is still alive as of this writing and has up to recently practiced Bharathanatyam, have quite consciously shaped the history and the form of classical dance in South India to suit the changing social milieu.  Maybe there will be a conscious revival of devadasi-style classical South Indian dance with the postmodern maturity it takes to take and preserve all its component parts without needing to change it, censor it, or preserve it in academic formaldehyde.  A living, growing dialogue between devadasi dance and Bharathanatyam can only be of cultural benefit to everyone concerned.

Rabindra Nritya/Tagore Dances in Bengali Films

November 29, 2014, 8:38 pm

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In my efforts over the past year to look beyond my focus on South Indian cinema dance to see what other regional cinemas of India have to offer, my research on Odissi, Manipuri, and Sattriya film dances led me eastward to the cinemas of Odisha in East India and Manipur and Assam in Northeast India. But what about the cinema of Bengal situated directly in between those states and also one of India's major film-making centers since the craft began? (Note: I am focusing on Indian Bengali films produced in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and the Indian state of West Bengal—not those produced in what was East Bengal and East Pakistan near/after partition/independence and now is Bangladesh).

Other regional Indian classical dance forms had been depicted in a few Bengali films with an authentic earnestness and execution. For example, the best Kathak nritta in a non-Mujra setting in Indian cinema can be found in Jalsaghar (1958), Khudito Pashan (1960), and Basanta Bahar (1957); Odissi dance was skillfully depicted in Nirjana Saikate (1963) and Yugant (1995); and the infamous Anjana Banerjee performed decent Bharatanatyam in Chhandaneer (1989). That's not to say that examples of bad faux-classical dance are not found in Bengali cinema. There are plenty such as Abhiman (1986), Jamalay Jibanta Manush (1958), and some faux-Manipuri dances—but when good dance is showcased in Bengali films, it is really good. And there are certainly folk dance forms of the region most notably Chhau that have also been showcased in a few Bengali films.

Jalsaghar (1958)

The popularity of Kathak and Odissi dance depictions in Bengali films makes historical sense. Kathak dancer and scholar Pallabi Chakravorty [3] describes how female court dancers in north and east India during British rule became "popularly known as nautch dancers" but also "as tawaifs in the royal courts of north India and baijis or nautch dancers in nineteenth-century Bengal." As kingdoms continued to decline, in the late nineteenth-century Calcutta "became the prime destination for displaced dancers and musicians from the north, who found new sources of patronage among the Bengali elite" particularly in the "music rooms of the Bengali zamindars (landlords)." Ah, now I understand the background of Roshan Kumari's thrilling Kathak dance in Jalsaghar ("The Music Room," 1958)!The appearance of Odissi dance in Bengali films is not surprising as well. Certainly Odisha is close to Bengal and shares many cultural similarities, but as scholar Nandini Sikand has shown, there is a history of women with Bengali backgrounds becoming prominent Odissi dancers such as Ritha Devi, Indrani Rahman (married into a Kolkata family), and recently Sharmila Biswas [13].

So while the depiction of Kathak and Odissi in Bengali films had a uniquely Bengali precedent, I continued to wonder...was there a uniquely-Bengali dance depicted in Bengali films? For some time I assumed there simply was not because from my limited experience Bengali films seemed to be mostly "serious" and "artsy." This perception appears to be accurate especially for pre-1980s films. Historian Sharmistha Gooptu has shown that long before Satyajit Ray, Calcutta productions were "distinguished through their association with Bengali literary and avant-garde cultures" and were deliberately made and seen as noncommercial art for the Bengali audience which had different tastes than the all-India market and demanded films with quality storylines and acting [5]. Cinematic dance depictions were not well received in Bengal. Silent/early Bengali films like Andhare Alo, Pati Bhakti, Bilwamangal, and Tara the Dancer which had courtesan/nautch characters were criticized for "depicting the life of prostitutes"[5]. Sharmistha reveals a fascinating nugget of information—that director Binay Bandopadhyay (Banerjee) "brought the song and dance film" to Bengali cinema, but he lamented his receiving "only abuses and criticism" by critics who upheld the virtues of the "refinement and decency" of Bengali films as opposed to the "cheap and commercial" focus of the Hindi cinema of Bombay [5]. I wish I could track down the films he was associated with, but I've not had success finding information about him.

Looking beyond cinema, unlike some other Indian states/regions with film production centers, Bengal does not have a "classical" dance tradition of its own (though in recent years Dr. Mahua Mukherjee has made a claim to have reconstructed a lost Bengali classical dance form called "Gaudiya Nritya," but the dance's acceptance and "classicism" is controversial and its current status confusing given that this Narthaki article says the dance "is the most recent inclusion under the Sangeet Natak Akademi’s list of ‘classical’ dances of India" but I've not found any evidence of this and most other sources describe the form's "classicism" as disputed).

While Bengal may not have an indigenous classical dance tradition, it does have a unique claim in the history of dance in India—it's where modern/contemporary Indian dance began! Following the Bengal Renaissance, "Bengal provided one of the most fertile grounds in India from which a modernist movement in art and sculpture, theatre, music and dance was spawned in the twentieth century"[10]. Modern/contemporary Indian dance began with two charismatic Bengalis: Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and later Uday Shankar (1900-1977). Bengal was also the site of the founding of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) in 1942 whose influential dance squad was led by former Uday Shankar dance school-associates Shanti Bardhan, Narendra Sharma, and Sachin Shankar [2].

But of all those artists, it is Rabindranath Tagore and his everlasting popularity in Bengal that provides the key to unlocking plentiful examples of a uniquely Bengali dance in Bengali cinema. I can't believe the answer was there all along in YouTube sensation Anjana Banerjee's dances to Tagore songs in the film Chhandaneer!

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (1909)

Described by Ram Gopal as "that bearded, white sage of beauty and poetry"[6], Rabindranath Tagore seems most often remembered today for his prolific output of literature and music. While conflicting information abounds in some of the details of his life, I'll do my best to give a fair summary. Tagore was the first non-European Nobel laureate who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, and he "dominated the literary scene in India for more than half a century"[14]. Tagore also created his own style of music called "Rabindra Sangeet" penning the lyrics for his compositions which number over 2,000 (and include both India and Bangladesh's national anthems), and he "fashioned his own genre of dance drama, a unique blend of dance, theater and songs"[2]. Tagore's output and influence did not stop there. He was also "one of the most prominent intellectuals in Bengal in the first half of the twentieth century"[11] and "along with [Gandhi] was one of the most significant voices in India's journey towards post-colonial modernity"[10]. His family connections to the reformist Brahmo Samaj movement, his ideas and efforts on education, and his penchant for painting rounded out his long list of achievements and influences. In short, he was an Indian cultural icon and continues to be so particularly in West Bengal today [9].

While he is well remembered for his songs and dance dramas/musical plays, his work and philosophy of dance and movement seem to be less known outside of dance circles (especially outside of India). Dance was the last artistic endeavor that Tagore embarked upon, and he "saw dance as the perfect articulation of his songs and poetry" and developed a modern/contemporary approach to dance [1,2]. Tagore wrote, "The main function of the art of dancing is expressed in the beauty and the grace generated by the movement of the body in specific ways – sometimes even without specific meanings. The joy in that is of feeling the rhythm"[8]. Unlike the "classical" dances that were being reconstructed during this time by contemporaries like Vallathol (Kathakali) and Rukmini Devi (Bharatanatyam), Tagore saw dance free of a need to associate with the rules, movement, and narrative/plot prescriptions of ancient texts and instead placed the dance in an expressive contemporary context concerned with human situations [1,8].

Tagore with Shapmochan Troupe, likely 1930s [16]

It all began at the alternative educational school Shantiniketan that he established in Bengal in 1901 (and known today as Visva-Bharati). "Here, in spite of society’s serious reservations against such practices in education, he gave an important position to music, drama and the visual arts," and from the beginning "he encouraged and participated in dance-dramas where all the students and Tagore himself would use body movements in a dramatic or theatrical format along with songs"[8]. While dance was initially spontaneous and "mere embellishment to the songs" drawn from Manipuri and folk dance vocabulary, he later looked to various existing classical and traditional styles of India, Southeast Asia, and a bit of European modern dance "to find a vocabulary to shore up the metaphoric and dramatic imagery of his songs and dance dramas"[2]. Between 1921-1940, his style fully flowered in development [11], and he invited teachers from extant styles to teach at his school and developed a training method for his students. He didn't involve himself with the professional Bengali theater of the day and instead drew audiences to his Santiniketan productions [2]. Similar to the classical dance reconstructions, he made dance respectable and accessible to the middle-class woman, in his case the Bengali woman [2].

Sounds a bit too similar to Uday Shankar and his Almora Center, you might ask? While Tagore and Shankar's institutions were both similar, scholar Prarthana Purkayastha points out that "Shankar went one step further and pushed the boundaries of choreography by introducing elements of improvisation, underlining the importance of a conscious relationship between the gestures of daily life and dance movements" and he "established a training system in which prominence was given to an in-depth knowledge of the body and its various components."[15]. While Tagore is said to have joined the stage in some of his productions, he was much older and does not seem to have danced solo or focused on himself as a distinct artist. Aishika Chakraborty says it best: "If Rabindranath was the first to conceptualize Indian modern dance, Uday Shankar was the first to apply it" by bringing Indian dance to the rest of the world with his youthful physical and artistic charm [2].

Existing at a time when there was no acceptance of dance outside of the classical/folk binary, "The works of Tagore and Shankar, in opening up dance to a process of experimentation and to the coming together of multiple forms, have generally been seen as a way to self-discovery and self-definition"[8]. Depending on your point of view, Tagore and Shankar initiated a modern dance tradition in India or at least provided the building blocks and inspiration for those who came later. Tagore is especially important because he seems to have been among the very first influential figures in India to have an interest in dance as creative expression, though many consider Uday Shankar to be the first modern Indian dancer. It has been suggested that the success of Tagore and Shankar despite enormous cultural hurdles was largely due to their personal charisma (1,18).

The dance style that Tagore created goes by many names today: Rabindra Nritya (seemingly the most popular), Rabindrik Dance, Tagore Dance, and other variations. Given that it "never developed as a formally codified style with the kind of specific and methodized technique that a discipline demands," Rabindra Nritya "has existed for decades now as an undefined territory of art whose only laws are: that the dance must be set to Tagore’s songs; that it must represent the meaning of the songs through body movements; and that these movements must be fluid and rhythmic"[1]. The dance style seems to have lost steam after Tagore died, and similar to Uday Shankar's style, Tagore's students and followers seem to have preserved the Shantiniketan style in amber and rigidly adhered to the form of his dance instead of its revolutionary philosophy and ideals [8]. Ranjabati Sircar, daughter of the Bengali dancer Manjusri Chaki-Sircar whose Navanritya dance could be seen as a worthy successor to Tagore's dance philosophy legacy, has said that Rabindra Nritya became stereotyped with each lyrical word literally interpreted through gesture [2], and Sunil Kothari adds criticism of the "oft-repeated movements without any regard for the lyrics"[17].

Rabindra Nritya in Bengali Cinema

Once I learned how popular Tagore continues to be in Bengal today, I was not surprised that his special brand of music and dances inspired by it are fairly plentiful in Bengali cinema. The popularity goes all the way back to the beginning. In describing the Calcutta film production powerhouse New Theatres which was founded in 1930 by B.N. Sircar, Sharmistha Gooptu notes that its prestigious reputation was gained through its connection to Tagore as well as B.N. Sircar's "reputation as a gentleman," and it was New Theatres that "popularised Rabindra Sangeet, which had hitherto been confined to the hallowed precints of Santiniketan"[4]. New Theatres even produced the 1931/2 film version of Tagore's drama Natir Puja ("The Dancing Girls Worship") which featured not only Tagore himself on screen as well as in the director's seat but also student performers from Shantiniketan and an "interpretive dance"[4].

The video below from the Indiancine.ma annotated online archive (alternatively on YouTube in lesser quality) is according to the info notes"a simple recording" of the Natir Puja stage play in 1926, not the actual 1931/2 film directed by Tagore. I've embedded just the dance portion. What a fascinating glimpse of Tagorean dance in the 1920s! The slow, graceful movements seem inspired by Manipuri dance; I wonder if that segment is very similar to the "interpretive dance" the film is said to contain. To honor the 150th birth anniversary of Tagore, the NFDC and Government of India released a DVD set of his stories as depicted in cinema including a "partial but restored"Natir Puja on the bonus disc! I've not been able to track down a copy of the DVD to see how it compares to the online footage available.

Listed below is a collection of all the examples of Rabindra Nritya I could find in Bengali cinema grouped into categories. Complicating this effort was my lack of knowledge in Bengali (and any other Indian language!) which makes it difficult to appreciate and understand a dance that is so closely connected to the lyrics. The Geetabitan website was incredibly helpful in finding English translations for many of the songs (which are easily identified by the first few words), but Tagore's poetry can be hard to grasp in English which according to some is due to its being simply untranslatable into other languages. At least Rabindra Sangeet is quite easy to identify after listening to enough examples of it. After going through all the songs in this post, I think those who are unfamiliar with the song genre will agree!

Non-Interpretive Dance

While these first two dances are certainly "fluid and rhythmic" and "set to Tagore's songs," the missing piece is the representation of the lyrics through body movements. I am struck by the lifelessness of the dances. The dancer's faces have no expression, the movements are rigidly set to the simple musical rhythm, and the choreography consists almost entirely of pretty arm and torso movements that have no connection to the sung poetry. Sircar and Kothari's criticisms seem applicable here! While Tagore himself felt that joy in dance could be found in simply "feeling the rhythm," the dancers here don't seem to be feeling any joy, and neither do I as the viewer!

Udayer Pathe (1944) - "Basante Phool Ganthlo" - Bimal Roy's debut film, the social Udayer Pathe has the earliest example of Rabindra Nritya that I was able to find in Bengali cinema beyond Natir Puja. The dance takes place at an opulent home birthday party and is performed by actress Smriti Biwas. I added subtitles to the video sourced from Geetabitan's English translation, and the dance movements seem wholly unconnected with the meaning of the song. Note: Yes, the audio is slightly off, and yes I hate dailymotion too...

Select "CC Subtitles" button, then "EN" - Direct link

Baksa Badal (1965/70)– "Mora Jale Sthole Kato"- Mixed in with the loose Manipuri-inspired movements are a few movements inspired by Bharatanatyam as well as some tell-tale signs of Uday Shankar's style (e.g. the "limp hand") and then the dance transitions to a solo vocal number. While Geetabitan doesn't have an English translation, I have a feeling the content of the lyrics would make no difference.

Start 37:10

Odissi Influences

These next two dances while having some of the same lifelessness as the ones above are different in that their movement vocabulary is inspired largely by Odissi. I had mentioned in the introduction above Nandini Sikand's [13] point that many women with Bengali backgrounds have become prominent Odissi dancers, but what I found most fascinating is learning of the tension that exists between some Odia and Bengali Odissi dancers. Nandini describes how some "Odissi traditionalist" audience members at recent festivals and performances have booed dancers who perform Odissi to Rabindra Sangeet instead of traditional Odia music. She outlines the importance of understanding these incidents in the the context of the complex history of Odisha and Bengal—a "larger context of Oriya regionalism and a perceived Bengali chauvanism and/or appropriation of Oriya culture" hearkening back to when Orissa was formerly part of the Bengal Presidency under British rule and Bengali elites dominated administrative posts and Odisha fought to maintain its own identity. None of this tension is reflected in the film dances, of course, which seem to randomly pick "pretty" Odissi-inspired movements purely for their aesthetic value.

Bhalobasa Bhalobasa (1985)– "Mamo Chitte Niti Nritte" - The English translation of this song reveals it centers on the concept of an eternal rhythmic dance, but like the dances above, the expressionless dancer does not interpret the lyrics...even with something as simple as "following the waves." I featured this dance once before on the blog but had no idea it was an example of Rabindra Sangeet at that time.
Chander Bari(2007)–"Chander Hasi/Hasir Bandh Bhengeche" - No English translation of the lyrics is available, but I have a feeling the meaning makes no difference to the decorative dance movements. I love pretty movements as much as the next person, but somehow in these film dances they fall flat. I suspect the feelings that the songs stir within Bengali audiences override the vapidness of the choreography...

Tagore Dance Dramas

Dadar Kirti (1980) – "Guru Guru Guru Guru" and "Bodhu/Bondhu Kon Aalo"- The heroine of the film, played by Mahua Roychoudhury, performs the character Chitrangada in excerpts of the Tagore dance drama of the same name. At the 2:00 minute mark, Mahua dances solo to the hauntingly-beautiful "Bodhu Kon Aalo" which describes her realization that she is in love with Arjuna. Instead of Geetabitan's awkward translation, I used Deepankar Choudhury's as well as Anandamayee Majumdar's insights to overlay English subtitles on the dance. While many of the movements are purely decorative, when she does act out some of the material aspects of the lyrics (eyes, sunshine, mango buds) and expresses some of the emotions, it all feels very restrained and cold especially the parts describing her waiting eons in misery and woe. If performed by another dancer who internalized and deeply-felt the poetics, I think it could have been much better. Sadly, Mahua died five years after this film was released.

Select "CC Subtitles" button, then "EN" - Direct link

Muktodhara (2012)– This film was based on the real-life story of the Bengali Odissi dancer Alokananda Ray (played by leading Bengali actress Rituparna Sengupta) who in 2007 taught male convicts in a Kolkata jail how to dance and perform the Tagore dance drama Valmiki Pratibha at the jail and then around the country. It's quite an inspiring story (the "Sound-of-Music-in-prison" as NPR calls it) and part of the state of West Bengal's efforts to reform prisons/correctional homes through "cultural therapy" and training in Indian performing arts. The handsome Nigel Akkara played himself in the lead male role in the film, and as in the film, the Valmiki Pratibha story of reformation and transformation led to similar reforms in Nigel and other prisoners. In the playlist below is a brief initial dance practice scene followed by the last 30 minutes of the film where the prisoners perform Valmiki Pratibha on stage. I am mesmerized by the vocals of Sasha Goshal for Nigel in the film.
 

Kabuliwala (1956) - "Kharobayu Boy Bege" -  Based on Tagore's emotional short story, Kabuliwala features a cute stage performance to the Tagore song "Kharobayu Boy Bege" by a group of children.The lead little girl, the character Mini (played by Sharmila Tagore's younger sister, Tinku Tagore) whom Kabuliwala befriends, is absolutely adorable as she tries to remember all the hand gestures (I think she's trying to do the Manipuri sandansha hand gesture at 1:38). The clip below is poor quality and the audio is off, but it lets us see the dance unlike the full film upload at the Indiancine.ma archive which is grayed out due to its copyright status.  The 1961 Hindi remake released in the centenary year of Tagore's birth can be seen in full on YouTube.

Uday Shankar Influence

Bipasha (1962) - One of the most popular films of the beloved couple of Bengali cinema, Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen, Bipasha has one of my favorite black-and-white "spectacle" dances—a multi-part stage dance drama that is highly influenced by Uday Shankar's dance style. But it finds a place on this list because the music for the lead female's solo dance (that begins with "Tomishe...") sounds like Rabindra Sangeet, though I've been unable to confirm the name. The dance drama is called "Upanayan" in the film, and Suchitra Sen's character is invited to watch it by a Christian missionary. Given the Sanskrit-chant style voiceovers and deliberate, energetic group choreography, the number does not seem to be imitating Tagore's brand of dance drama and instead has some strong affinities with Uday Shankar's 1948  film Kalpana.Many elements of the choreography are direct Kalpana inspirations such as the spread-finger hand shimmies, the lead male's extended arms shown from the back, the upper-body isolations, the Manipuri spins and sandansha hand gesture, and the Kathakali-inspired "limp hand."

Left: Bipasha    Right: Kalpana

The lead male and female dancers are fantastic! I have tried my hardest to identify them but have had no luck. My guess is that they might be from the Little Ballet Troupe since they are unlikely to be either Shanti Bardhan (who died in 1954) or the IPTA Central Squad (that broke up by the time the film was made). For a moment I guessed the male might by Narendra Sharma, but judging from extant pictures of him that's been ruled out.

Start 18:40

Abohoman (2010) – "Gahono Kusumokunjo Maajhe"- Guess who the lead, older dancer is in this song? Mamata Shankar, Uday Shankar's real-life daughter! In the scene, actress and Mamata Shankar Dance School-Trained dancer Ananya Chatterjee (not to be confused with the academic and dancer Ananya Chatterjea) is being trained for the role of Binodini, and the song is the Rabindra Sangeet "Gahan Kushum Kunjo Majhe" from one of Tagore's most famous dance dramas, Bhanu Singar Padabali. The English subtitles for the dance appear once the film's dialogue voiceover stops. It's a beautifully-choreographed dance with lots of Uday Shankar influences. Apparently this is only one of two film dances Mamata has done; the other being a tribal dance in Agantuk.

 All the Rest!

One set of dances I would love to find but seem to not be available are those of Valmiki Banerjeeas a dancer in the films Meghdoot (1945)and SriTulsidas (1947) and as an assistant dance director in the film Pandit Moshai (1951). Given that he was a key exponent of Rabindra Nritya, I bet the film dances contain some great examples!

Here is a playlist of all the remaining examples of Rabindra Nritya that I found in Bengali cinema with names and descriptions following. I'm sure there are some more that I'm not aware of. Suggestions welcome!

Starts with video 12

• Chhandaneer (1989) - This film is based on the real life of Anjana Banerjee (more infamously known from her hilarious YouTube video) who experimented with performing Bharatanatyam to Tagore's songs in her younger years. I included two dances set to Rabindra Sangeet in the film. In the first clip, she tells a reporter, "There are a few Tagore songs based on South Indian compositions and tunes that can easily be blended with Bharatnatyam. For example, Meenakshi Mamudangdehi...based on this same raga, Tagore composed "Bashanti Hey." The second dance may not be a proper Rabindra Sangeet, but it sounds like it is composed in a similar style with the same intentions.
• Chitrangada (2012) - "Bodhu Kon Alo" - Set to the same haunting Rabindra Sangeet as the dance from Dadar Kirti above, this film dance features the late Rituparno Ghosh who learned Odissi from Sharmila Biswas for the film. Ghosh, who also directed the film, plays a choreographer who is planning a performance of Tagore's dance drama Chitrangada. In an interview he described the costumes as based on Madam Menaka’s "Oriental style" and says he chose Odissi not Manipuri because "the Manipur that Arjun visited was a part of Kalinga in Orissa. Chitrangada was not the princess of Manipur the state as we usually think she is." 
• Natobor Not Out (2010) – "Hey Nuton Dekha Dik Aar"- Featuring lovely production values, this song is part of the larger whimsical story of the film. Tagore's portrait features in the procession and in the man's room, and the number was likely choreographed by Bengali film choreographer Sukalyan Bhattacharya who composed another dance in the film.
• Dekha/Dakha (1998) "Jibono Lata"or "E Ki Labonye Purno Pran"– A brief, slow-paced solo dance set outdoors that seems to match the general spirit of the lyrics' meaning as seen in the English translation.
• Alo (2003) – "Amar Raat Pohalo" - Actress Rituparna Sengupta dances again in this film in a song choreographed by Sukalyan Bhattacharya. Looking at the English translation, it appears that Rituparna enacts some of the lyrics such as the flute gesture, but for the most part her movements are just pretty...though also performed with feeling.
• Dhosomi (2012) - "Amar Sokol Roser Dara" - The choreography is sort of an annoying bollywood-meets-Rabindra Nritya mashup, but the song is gorgeous. The English translation reveals that the dancer seems to depict the flowing "stream" analogy and the eyes part amidst her living-room freestyle dance antics.
• Pushpadhanu (1959) - "Amare Rekho Dali" - While the song is a Rabindra Sangeet, the stage number seems to be mimicking Bharatanatyam in the costume and musical arrangement with the rhythmic interludes and footwork. Luckily Angel added English subtitles to the upload! The choreography doesn't belong to any particular dance tradition and is dominated by circular movements and spins. And I think this might be the laziest faux-flute playing ever captured in film!

Sources (all excellent reads!):

1. Bose, Mandakranta. "Indian Modernity and Tagore's Dance."University of Toronto Quarterly. Vol 77, No. 4. 2008.
2. Chakraborty, Aishika. "The Daring Within: Speaking Gender through Navanritya."Dance Matters Performing India. 2010.
3. Chakravorty, Pallabi. "Dancing into Modernity: Multiple Narratives of India's Kathak Dance."Dance Research Journal. Vol 38, No. 1/2, 2006. 
4. Gooptu, Sharmistha. "The Glory that Was: An Exploration of the Iconicity of New Theatres."Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Vol 23: 1&2. 2003.
5. Gooptu, Sharmistha. An Alternative Imaginary: The History of Bengali Cinema, c. 1921-1961. 2009. PhD Diss.
6. Gopal, Ram. Rhythm in the Heavens: An Autobiography. 1957.
7. Gopal, Sangita and Sujata Moorti, Eds. Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance. 2008.
8. Munsi, Urmimala Sarkar. "Boundaries and Beyond: Problems of Nomenclature in Indian Dance History."Dance: Transcending Borders. 2008.
9. O'Connell, Joseph and Kathleen. "Introduction: Rabindranath Tagore as 'Cultural Icon'."University of Toronto Quarterly. Vol 77, No. 4.
10. Purkayastha, Prarthana. "Warrior, Untouchable, Courtesan: Fringe Women in Tagore's Dance Dramas."South Asia Research. 2009. Vol 29 (3): 255-273.
11. Roy, Haimanti. Citizenship and National Identity in Post-Partition Bengal, 1947-65. 2006. PhD Diss.
12. Sircar, Manjusri Chaki. "Tagore and Modernization of Dance."New Directions in Indian Dance. 2006. [edited version of 1995 original]
13. Sikand, Nandini. Dancing with Tradition: a Global Community of Odissi Dancers. 2010. PhD Diss.
14. Tagore Centenary Issue. Natya Theatre Arts Journal. 1962.
15. Purkayastha, Prarthana. "Dancing Otherness: Nationalism, Transnationalism, and the Work of Uday Shankar."Dance Research Journal. Vol 44. No 1. 2012.
16. Isvarmurti, V. Life and Art of CN Vasudevan: Tamil Dancer and Tagore. 1986. 
17. Kothari, Sunil. "Rabindranath Tagore and Indian Dances: A Reassessment."  Nartanam. Volume XII, No. 2.
18. Abrahams, Ruth.  The Life and Art of Uday Shankar. 1985. PhD Diss.
     

The "Indian" Dances in Kali Yug (1963, Italy/France/Germany)

January 14, 2015, 8:10 pm

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Back in 2011 when I researched for my post series on Indian dances in Western films about India, I found some images from the 1963 Italian film Kali Yug that seemed to depict India and feature an "Indian" dance that looked like it would fit in nicely with the orientalist dances in part three of the series. 

Kali Yug film posters

At that time, I wasn't able to find any clips online or copies of the film for sale and it seemed quite rare. Fast forward three years later and a Google search on a lark reveals the film and its sequel (the German dubs, Kali Yug Die Gottin Der Rache and Aufruhr in Indien) are available at Dailymotion!

According to the Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema, Kali Yug was one of "two adventure fantasies set in India" directed by Mario Camerini, "one of the foremost directors of Italian cinema in the interwar years." The full name of the film was Kali Yug, La Dea Della Vendetta (Vengeance of Kali), and its sequel released in the same year was Mistero del Tempio Indiano (Mystery of an Indian Temple). While the credits of the films describe them as Italian-French-German coproductions, the films seem to have been shot in Italian and then dubbed into German (Kali Yug Die Gottin Der Rache/Aufruhr in Indien)and French (Kali-Yug Deesse de al Vengeance/Le Mystere Du Temple Hindou) as well as other European languages judging by the titles found online (Kali-Yug Les Revoltes de/de Opstandelingen Van, Kali-Jug Boginja Osvete, etc.)

The films are an entertaining orientalist imagining of a "strange" India and feature lots of European actors in brownface. The setting is the seemingly fictionally-located city of "Devgaon" in 1880 India.

The four dances in the films all center around the character Amrita, an exotic-enough sounding Indian name, played by the French actress and "Bond girl"Claudine Auger. Darkened into ridiculous-looking brownface, Amrita seems to be some sort of temple dancer or dancer maintained by the kingdom who lounges about in opulent quarters when she's not performing in a way straight out of colonial paintings.

Kali Yug was released only four years after Fritz Lang's successful 2-part 1959 "Indian Epic" (Der Tiger Von Eschnapur and Das Indische Grabmal)which makes me think Camerini wanted to try his hand at the "exotic India" subject matter for the Italian audience primarily but also with dubs to cash in on India-hungry audiences in France and Germany. France has a colonial history in India and Germany's love of Indian culture and films is well documented, but Italy's connections to India seem much less robust though similar in some ways to Germany particularly far back in history. Given how influenced the films seem to be by the 1938 and 1959 versions of Das Indische Grabmal/Der Tiger Von Eschnapur, I wasn't surprised to see the credits list Eichberg Film as one of the coproducers. I assume that was the production company Richard Eichberg who directed the 1938 films!

The Film Dances

The first "Indian" dance is a practice scene with Amrita teaching two "Indian" (Europeans in brownface?) women in front of the gazes of British officers. We see Amrita first in closeup as she does stereotypically-exotic "Indian" movements (including "namaste" and "eye" gestures) and then we see a bit of her teaching before the three are seen dancing again briefly at 25:15. Wish I knew what idiotic comments the British officers were making in the interim! The other two dancers while looking as over-tanned as Amrita at least have some dancing talent. I can't guarantee any of these videos will start at the right time (Dailymotion is buggy), so move to the time listed at the top of the video or use the direct link if needed.

23:33-26:00 - Direct Link

After a tense dialogue scene between Amrita and a British character, we see Amrita and the other two dancers again giving a formal performance of the choreography they were simply practicing before. The portion at the end (after 56:10) seems loosely inspired by Kathak in the quick spins and armwork and by Uday Shankar's style in the half-seated shimmy and opposing hands. The rest of the moves are vague "Oriental"/"Indian" inspirations that remind one of a lot of Indian popular film choreography. I'm really intrigued by the dancer on the left. She's obviously a practiced and graceful dancer and I suspect she probably choreographed the film dances. Might she have been someone well-known in the Indian dance community in France/Germany/Italy at that time? The dancer on the right struggles with remembering the choreography, but the worst of all is Amrita and her silly attami neck-slides.

54:55-56:40 - Direct Link

The third dance in the film is a brief solo performance by Amrita for what looks like the king, and she moves her hand in one trajectory frozen in the same hand gesture...seemingly to evoke some sort of mysterious exoticism. The eclectic mix of instruments is quite humorous!

1:20:57-1:22:11- Direct Link

In the film sequel, there is only one dance--a dramatic number by Amrita in the temple in front of the Kali statue right before the structure implodes. The setting is obviously inspired by the 1938 and 1959 versions of Der Tiger Von Eschnapur/Das Indische Grabmal. Amrita's moves here are simplistic, rhythmic, and most importantly, "exotic"!

1:18:14 - 1:20:11 - Direct link

How fun to unearth yet another entertaining glimpse of how India was being misrepresented in popular European entertainment at that time!

Mystery Indian Dancers in Seven Wonders of the World (1956, US)

February 21, 2015, 10:38 am

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When fellow Indian dance sleuth Ragothaman translated sections of Shankar Venkatraman's Tamil book Thiraiulagil Isai Kalaignargal (Musicians in Cinema), I was surprised to read a number of little-known references to film and film dance appearances of Indian dancers and musicians. I previously blogged about one—Kuchipudi dancer Sobha Naidu dancing in Abhimanavanthulu (1973, Telugu)—but the few others mentions seemed to have no available footage today, like Bangalore Nagarathnammal acting in Krishna Leela (1947, Kannada) and K. Bhanumathi acting (and possibly more?) in Jalaja/Natya Magimai (1938, Tamil).

Venkatraman's book also described multiple films that the now-veteran dancer Padma Subrahmanyam had danced in: the Kannada movie Sri Rathna (likely the 1955 Kannada/Tamil film),the Tamil Nadu documentary Alaiyangalum Thiruvizhakkalum (Temples and their Festivals) in which "she danced for the song 'Kalaiyadha Kalai Engal Kalaiye' in front of the temple deities," and the American movie Seven Wonders of the World in which she "danced a 'snake dance'."

I felt excited by the last discovery! Surely Seven Wonders of the World, a 1956 American film, would be relatively easy to find, and it sounded like Padma might have done a solo dance! But a bit of research led to the discovery that the film was made using Cinerama technology, a widescreen format somewhat like today's IMAX that died out in the 1970s. Cinerama films were "impossible to see at all, in any form, for nearly half a century" because they were never broadcast on TV or released for home viewing (DVDTalk).

As luck would have it, many Cinerama features have been painstakingly restored and digitized in the past few years including Seven Wonders of the World that released on Blu-ray/DVD last year. When I first learned that the digitization company Flicker Alley was taking pre-orders for the disc set, I found an "abandoned" trailer they posted of the film on YouTube and became giddy when I saw two young Indian dancers performing on temple grounds at 2:04. I of course dropped everything and placed an order! Who knew what wonders would be on screen and what other shots would be included. I envisioned close-ups on the dancers faces and additional footage and settings.

When the discs came in the mail I watched them with bated breath. The DVD transfer was a bit fuzzy so I watched the Blu-ray version which was significantly crisper. I stared at the two main dancer's faces and couldn't recognize them. The one on the right looked plausibly like a young Padma, but it was too hard to tell. At first glance, the dancer on the left a looked a lot like MK Saroja, but closer inspection of various face angles cast doubt on that theory. The scene focused far too much time on the cute little dancing girl and her family and much to my disappointment didn't show anything new in the dance segment that wasn't already visible in the trailer. A number of other dancers can be seen on right-hand side of the frame, but the camera never gets closer to them. I realized that the Thiraiulagil Isai Kalaignargal reference to Padma dancing in the film could mean she was simply among the backup dancers and not featured in the lead as was implied. If only the camera had focused closer on the background dancers!

While the scene was a disappointment based on my high expectations, I still am fascinated by who the dancers could be. Below is footage of the Blu-ray I captured with my smartphone (it looks oodles better than any capture I made of the DVD) that I'm posting for the purpose of analysis. How amazing that we can see this footage so clearly today!

Since the voiceover audio is very quiet, here is the text of the narration: "[Opening scene on Ganges] Benaras, religious wonder-city of India. On the Ganges, the sacred river. A pilgrimage city from time immemorial, with its famous ghats, the landing places along the river. For centuries, the great and the rich, maharaja and merchant, have built shrines and palaces here along the Ganges. Of temples alone Benaras has 1,500. A wonder-city of strange religion. [Dance scene] A temple dance, a cobra dance. The deadly-hooded serpent has a weird significance. Strange mysticism in this performance of the temple dancers and the cobra." 

Here is left half of the widescreen frame that focuses on the dancer that looks at first glance like MK Saroja but soon seems to be someone else:

 

Here is the right half of the widescreen frame that focuses on the dancer that is conceivably Padma Subrahmanyam:

Following this dance segment, there is another short dance scene featuring two children performing what looks like Kathak or North Indian folk dance, screencapped below. Right before the children appear, the narrator proclaims, "nearly all temples in India have their dancing girls trained in childhood, even here at the monkey temple."

A travel log and a supplement from the making of Seven Wonders of the World are posted at the in70mm.com website. Written by sound engineer Richard Pietschmann, the logs reveal that the India scenes were shot starting in January 1955 in New Delhi (presumably the Taj Mahal footage) and later in February in Benaras (presumably both of the dance scenes). No mention is made of the filming of the dance segment and the focus is more on tales of strange lands filled with poverty and distasteful practices that Pietschmann described to send to his family back home in letters.

Regarding the production in Benaras, Pietschmann wrote that it was difficult "because of the extreme caution and finesse that the people of Benaras have to be dealt with. These people are very conscious of their shortcomings and do not want to be photographed under such conditions. They only want the outside world to see their progression since India has become a republic, which has been for about seven years now." Reading that, I wonder how exactly the staging and depiction of the "cobra dance" scene, with its "mystical" temple setting and stereotyped snake charmers, came about and who was responsible for it. Why are the dancers dressed in a South Indian style and performing Natanam Adinar, a popular keertanam in Bharatanatyam (thanks Ragothaman for the ID!)? If the filmmakers ceded the creation of the dance scenes to local Indian contacts and crew, what was their goal and what were the scenes meant to evoke for the foreign viewer?

Perhaps someone among my readers will recognize the dancers, remember seeing this film, or recall something about its filming. Until then, the dancer identities will remain a mystery!

Links to buy the film: Flicker Alley, Amazon