Article - Brahmanical interventions in Kerala's musical legacy - V. Kaladharan

I have often wondered what prevented Kerala, the south-west tip of the Indian sub-continent, from embracing the oceanic grandeur and profundity of the classical Karnatic music till the dawn of the 20th century. King Swathy Thirunal and his court musicians definitely did have an influence in Thiruvananthapuram and in its immediate precincts in the 19th century when it comes to Karnatic music. The untimely demise of Swathy sounded the death knell of Karnatic music too in the capital city of the erstwhile Travancore. This was but an ephemeral state of affairs.

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Anita's Andal - Dance Matters: Column by Ashish Mohan Khokar

Andal is a five lettered word, so is Anita. Andal mystified, Anita demystified. Andal left a mark for aeons; Anita has left a mark by recreating Andal for the modern era. Naachiyar Next is one production that'd go down in history of Andal lore, as one of the handsomest offering in recent times. Anita Ratnam has also made it accessible to the rest of India. Southern traditions are steeped in these tales but for the rest of India, this is a good entry point to a rarefied and layered culture.

It is also accessible as Anita uses English to communicate. So the story and its core content reaches all. That Delhi audiences, who often know very little of the rest of India, connected easily shows Anita succeeded in making a very, very Tamil cultural icon reach all. The audience gave Anita Ratnam and team a real, long standing ovation proving yet again that Delhi may be dili-tante in deeper cultural moorings - especially of southern traditions - but it still retains its heart by giving generous claps all through the 70 minute rendition of the life and times of Godha, as Andal was also known. 

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Anita says...April 2024

"TO A MAN WHO ONLY HAS A HAMMER

EVERYTHING HE ENCOUNTERS
LOOKS LIKE A NAIL"
- American psychologist Abraham Maslow



Hmmm- sums up how harsh and shrill the tone has been amongst some cultural and social circles.

Sitting in Chennai where the temperatures are rising every second, there is much to talk about - and the two main events in the dance and music world DID NOT reflect much positivity. MOST of the action was OFF STAGE... and social media was the battle ground for much of the tussle of words, egos, ideologies and theories.

What am I talking about?
I will get to that
But first... the good news... no, the GREAT NEWS!

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Article - On Mohiniyattam's ascent - Mythili Maratt Anoop

Mohiniyattam, like other theatrical arts of Kerala, has been dramatic, but the real-life drama that unfolded in the past few days has catapulted Mohiniyattam to the segment of main/ hard news from being perhaps a byte in the arts and culture segment. Mohiniyattam became the hotbed of controversy with the instance of a faculty from Kerala Kalamandalam making derogatory comments on the gender and skin colour of an established male artiste, teacher, and scholar, Dr R LV Ramakrishnan and the whole community of Mohiniyattam dancers standing up for him on the social media. Numerous opinions and support writing surfaced in solidarity with him. An issue such as this, in our context where there is growing sensitivity to issues relating to gender, caste, beauty norms (I wish, I could add religion too), is a sure shot way to stir up a hornet's nest, which is a good thing for the dance and the artists involved, as ultimately, all news is, after all, good news. In the past few days, I had several friends, family who had no stakes in Mohiniyattam, sharing video clips of the canonical interview, and opinion pieces with me on whatsapp, and that vouches for the ability that such issues have in generating public interest. Mohiniyattam has certainly outrun the 'Mohini', the practice of several male Mohiniyattam artistes and academic discourse has reflected this turn for more than a decade, and now the debate has found a loud finale in the public realm of social media.

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Article - Technology takes over techniques of naatya - VP Dhananjayan

It is heartening to see a surfeit of professional productions in the Naatya arena attracting a huge mixed audience being entertained with a fairly good standard of dancing. Over the years some of the Bharatanaatyam schools have been competing with each other excelling in their presentation quality using technological developments both in stagecraft and audio support. The senior and junior naatya acharyas and self-styled choreographers strive hard to train their students to maintain a good dancing technique with precision, synchronisation in group dancing, uniformity in costuming though some lack aesthetic colours and design. Some of the out of box thematic solo and group presentations are testimonies for the present intelligent generation's creative thinking abilities surpassing their immediate and previous generation who had limited technological knowledge and exposure to internet, YouTube, online expertise etc. The group choreography employed in the film industry by dance masters goes beyond our imaginations creating fantasies of group formations which in turn influence the new generation of classical dancers, be it Bharatanaatyam or any other Bharateeya naatyam.

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Article - Entrepreneurship in performing arts - Aparna Vasudevan

Performing arts entrepreneurship is not a new invention. It can reasonably be presumed that performing artists have always been entrepreneurial. It is indubitably admirable that art thinkers and educators have started to ponder this subject seriously for years. Nevertheless, it was only a few years ago that the subject was made as Master's program at university level around the globe. It is essentially focusing on cultural and performing art entrepreneurship today. Different modern art incubators and performing art institutions can play a key role in fostering this entire idea. 

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Men to the fore! - Dance Matters: Column by Ashish Mohan Khokar

Rama Vaidyanathan, that dynamic all in one - dancer, teacher, choreographer, organiser, mother and mentor - has worked very, very hard to sustain a career in dance with family responsibilities, running a school, career and more. Today, Rama Vaidyanathan has also left a mark as the best Natya Kala Conference host with most outreach, acclaim and applause. Her students are now a legion, spread all over the world. Rama today ranks as numero uno in her generation of Bharatanatyam artistes.

So, when in the Swarna Saroja year - marked to peg 50 years is her saas-guru creation the Ganesa Natyalaya - she platformed 25 male dancers in one day, she created a new record in excellence, entertainment and engagement with art.

Male dancers have had an unusual history. Most first generation gurus, nattuvanars or gharana dancers were men. Even forms like Kuchipudi, Yakshagana, Sattriya and of course Kathakali had only male dancers. Then slowly the city-smart and college educated girls of Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata started taking to these and other classical forms. A trend started that slowly brought prakritis to the forefront and purush started getting relegated to the background. There were of course the couple dancers like Uday Shankar - Amala, US Krishna Rao - Chandrabagha Devi, Gopinath - Thankamani and Nataraj - Shakuntala. Next generation copied that idea of couple dancing or were inspired by above names and so we had the Dhananjayans, the Reddys, Singhajit Singh - Charu Sija Mathur, Thankamani - Govindan Kutty, Jayarama Rao -Vanashree Rao and more in many forms.

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