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Dance Footage of Balasaraswati at the 1963 Edinburgh Festival
Once again, BritishPathé's digitized archive holds another rare gem of Indian dance: brief footage of the legendary devadasi T. Balasaraswati giving a dance performance at the 1963 Edinburgh Festival...
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Film Dances/Appearances of Ram Gopal and Extant Dance Footage
While browsing the website of the National Portrait Gallery in London, I discovered they have a page on the late famous dancer Ram Gopal who is generally recognized as the first Indian dancer to bring...
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Film Dances of Madame Menaka and the Menaka Indian Ballet
Joshi's BiographyOver a year ago, I featured three rare film dance sequences of members of Madame Menaka's "Menaka Indian Ballet"; twowere from the 1938 German film Der Tiger Von Eschnapur and the...
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Finally! Kalpana (1948) is VIEWABLE ONLINE!
FINALLY! Whilst leisurely strolling Google tonight for any news on Uday Shankar's 1948 dance filmKalpana, I was ASTONISHED to find that the Pad.ma online video archive folks have UPLOADED THE ENTIRE...
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Kalpana's Dances Annotated at Pad.ma
As I have been watching and digesting Uday Shankar's dance film Kalpana, now available for viewing free at Pad.ma, I was initially overwhelmed trying to keep track of all the various dances. Kalpana's...
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Film Kuchipudi Dances of Sobha Naidu
Sobha Naidu (aka Shobha Naidu) is one of the big names in Kuchipudi dance. She "sprang on the dance scene in 1969" and "became synonymous" with the style of the late, famed Kuchipudi guru Vempati...
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The Nrityagram Dance Ensemble in Utah!
I saw Nrityagram! Dance! In person! In Utah! :DYes, us wee Intermountain West inhabitants don't get to see very many live performances of Indian dance, especially of the caliber of Nrityagram, so this...
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Kamala's Peacock Dance Found! (and some other "new" Kamala, Padmini, and...
Wow! AP International's YouTube channel has some pristinely-preserved songs and scenes from 1940s and 50s Tamil gems—many of which have been MIA online for quite some time! They've got Penn, Sri...
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Rare Video of Dancers Tara Chowdhary, Guru Gopinath, & Indrani Rehman,...
While browsing through the rest of the Vedhala Ulagam videos after my post about Kamala's peacock dance, I noticed that tucked in the middle of the clip "Sarangapani Sees Maharaja's Statue" was a...
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Uday Shankar's Kathakali Inspirations in Kalpana (Hindi, 1948)
Now that Uday Shankar’s dance film Kalpana (1948, Hindi) is easily viewable at Pad.ma, Shankar's dance style can be better analyzed and understood. While much has been written and theorized about...
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Simkie's Choreography in the Awara Dream Sequence (Hindi, 1951)
When I first heard that Uday Shankar's early dance partner Simkie choreographed the famous dream sequence in Awara (Hindi, 1951), I was quite surprised! That song and dance sequence is one of the most...
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How to Download Kalpana at Pad.ma
I recently discovered a way to download the entire length of Uday Shankar's 1948 dance film Kalpana (uploaded at Pad.ma as previouslydiscussedat length) in .webm video file format without having to...
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Adventures in Date-ing the BritishPathe Devadasi Dance and Video
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...
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Found: Kamala, Rhadha, and Vasanthi's Dance in Chenda (1973, Malayalam)
Another holy grail film dance FOUND! This time it's 39-year-old Kamala AND her younger sisters Rhadha and Vasanthi dancing to Kamala's own choreography in the semiclassical song "Nrithyathi Nrithyathi...
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A Conference Dedicated to Dance & Music in Early South Indian Cinema!
I am completely astonished to learn that, only a month and a half ago, an international symposium/conference "Dance, Music, Politics and Gender in Early South Indian Cinema" was held in France with an...
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Film Choreographies of Nattuvanar V.S. Muthuswami Pillai: Part One
V.S. Muthuswami Pillai (source)While reading about the hereditary nattuvanar of yesteryear V.S. Muthuswami Pillai in Sruti magazine (Issues 319 and 320), I was surprised to learn that he was the sole...
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Found: Vyjayanthimala's Devadasi Dance in Piya Milan (Choreographed by V.S....
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...
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Muthuswami Pillai's Star Students, Sayee and Subbulakshmi, and the "Twin...
The Sayee and Subbulakshmi sisters were the best South Indian "twin dance" duo of Indian cinema in the 1950s and 1960s, and I don't think anyone has matched them since! Their speed, precision,...
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Remembering the Late Tara Chaudhri
I received the sad news this week that Tara Chaudhri passed away peacefully last weekend in Karachi, Pakistan. Back in March, I had featured two rare videos of Tara—one of her performing Bharatanatyam...
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Sayee and Subbulakshmi's Film-Industry Relatives: R. Padma, P.A....
Sayee and Subbulakshmi's extended family had many members who were involved in the film industry at that time as actors, playback singers, and technicians behind the scenes. As we learned from the...
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