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Film Classical Dances of Manju Warrier (She's Back!)
Manju Warrier (official website)Manju Warrier is back and dancing in films again with a fantastic Kuchipudi-based dance in the Malayalam film Ennum Eppozhum released in March! I am beyond delighted....
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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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Video of Jack Cole Performing "Hindu Swing" in Hollywood Palace (1965)
In my 2011 post on the "Father of Modern Jazz Dance" Jack Cole, I had included a production still of Cole dancing on the American TV show Hollywood Palace (1965). The image captured an important...
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Found: Rangam (Malayalam, 1985) and Shobana/Mohanlal's Bharatanatyam and...
Rangam, one of the holdouts from my "holy grail" wish list, has finally been uploaded to YouTube! Thanks to cram for informing me of this lucky discovery! As I had hoped, classical dance (Kathakali and...
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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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Two More Busby Berkeley-Inspired Top Shots in 1930s Indian Film Dances
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...
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Muthukumara Pillai On Screen in Kannika (1947), and Other Nattuvanars in...
Thanks to twoYouTubers who have uploaded songs from the 1947 Tamil film Kannika in the past few months, Bharatanatyam dance history aficionados can now witness on screen the nattuvanar Kattumannar Koil...
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Swapna Sundari Dancing in Kissaa Kursee Kaa (Hindi, 1977)
Today I was alerted to Anuj Kumar's days-old The Hindu article about the 1977 Hindi film Kissaa Kursee Kaawhich reveals that the director used classical dance forms "performed by Swapna Sundari to...
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New 1950s Footage at Net-Film: Vazhuvoor Ramaiah Pillai, E.V. Saroja,...
Today I thought, "I wonder if Net-Film has digitized any new videos featuring South Asian dance since I last visited," and they most certainly HAVE—including nattuvangam/training footage of Vazhuvoor...
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Recent Film Classical Dance Finds
And...I'm back! :) Some personal matters have kept me away for a long time, but a moment of inspiration and deciding that my posts don't all have to be lengthy mini-dissertations led to a new post...
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Blog Hiatus, a Rare Simkie Photo, and Distinguishing Kuchipudi
Hello dear readers and friends! Well...it has been some time since I have posted or updated this blog. My how time flies! Long overdue is a post letting folks know that this blog is on an indefinite...
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Birju Maharaj Dancing Kathak in Khayal Gatha (1988, Hindi)...Yes, I'm Back,...
I'm back, my excitement has spontaneously returned, and the blog has had a facelift that's still under some construction. More on all that soon, but for now, on to the content!Every once in a while I...
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Film Kathak Choreographies of Birju Maharaj
My last post about the discovery of Birju Maharaj dancing Kathak on screen in the art film Khayal Gatha inspired me to go watch all of his film choreographies that I've heard bits and pieces about over...
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New Kamala Dance Finds in the Tamil Films Mahatma Udhangar (1947) and...
I'm back to immersing myself in searching and research, and what do I find this month but two film dances of Kamala that I've never seen before in the 1947 Tamil film Mahatma Udhangar and the 1958...
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Guru Gopinath Dancing in Mahatma Udhangar (1947, Tamil) and BFI Footage, Plus...
How excited I am to recently find two more visual records of Guru Gopinath dancing in the mid-1940s, one in the commercial Tamil film Mahatma Udhangar and one archival find at the British Film...
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Rare Madame Menaka Find: The Menaka Archive
A few days ago, an article on Madame Menaka by the great Indian dance historian Sunil Kothari was published in The Asian Age, and I was heartened to see that the title of his article is about his...
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The Golden Age of Scholarship on Dance in South Indian Cinema is Here
Back in August of last year, as I emerged from a period of gripping ennui that had largely led to my blog hiatus, I eagerly went on an internet search jaunt to see what new finds might be out there,...
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