Article - From a museum artifact to a living tradition The revival of Pavakathakali in India - Vinod Gopalakrishnan

Dakshinachitra, founded as an institution of preservation, has carried a deep commitment to nurturing and sustaining India's diverse traditional Arts and crafts with a special sensitivity toward forms that survive at the margins of society and are often vulnerable to disappearance. Over the years, the museum has built a meaningful legacy not only as a custodian of living cultures, but also as an active cultural institution that recognizes 'living communities' and the artists who keep these fragile traditions alive.

Through its annual Dakshinachitra 'Virudhu' citation and Prize, the institution has consistently acknowledged individuals and groups whose lifelong dedication have strengthened the continuity of folk and traditional arts across India. 

In 2026, this honor was bestowed upon the Pavakathakali performing team leaders of the Natanakairali ensemble from Kerala. Kunnambath Sreenivasan and Kauthiyam Parambu Ramakrishnan were nurtured under the guidance of Guru G. Venu - the visionary Kudiyattam artiste and Navarasa Sadhana Guru whose dedicated pioneering work in reviving endangered performance traditions is extraordinary.

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Blend of experienced and aspiring dancers - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Milind Srivastava's Art Foundation, with World Dance Day round the corner, celebrated its own annual effort at the Habitat Centre, Delhi, featuring both experienced and aspiring talents. The curtain raiser was a short Modern Dance item conceived and choreographed by puppeteer Salim Zaidi, titled Samhrti - 'an exploration of existence and transcendence through the art of dance.' The performance looks at the cyclical nature of the Universe with the eternal rhythms of creation and dissolution....

At the Habitat, the World Dance Day celebration brought together in one program, not just all Indian dance forms, including classical and tribal, but also international groups from countries like Indonesia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and a mixed African group. The event essentially stressed togetherness and bonhomie - represented through dances pertaining to various cultures - each with a distinctive identity. Mohiniattam dancer (who also teaches Bharatanatyam) Jayaprabha Menon, the choreographer, within the very short time she had for planning, wisely decided to enlist the help of foreign students studying in different colleges of Delhi. In what became a variety program of dance, each of the groups was given a separate slot of a few minutes, before coming together in the finale....

Fighting against very heavy traffic, I reached IIC too late to take in the starting item of dancer Amrita Lahiri's Kuchipudi program. The second item comprising a scene from the full length dance drama Usha Parinayam, revealed a dancer whose Bharatanatyam training with its linear geometry, has not influenced or detracted in any way, the mercurial grace and lyrical sensuality of Kuchipudi, which is in a compartment of its own, with her training under Jaikishore Mosalikanti and his wife Padmavani....

Yet another double bill presentation at the India International Centre, saw a very finished Bharatanatyam performance by Satvikaa Shankar, trained under Chennai's Anitha Guha. After gaining special accolades for her performance as Hanuman, it was a vastly different Margam dancer one witnessed with her opening comprising a rare varnam in Kalyani, a composition of Sivanandam of the Tanjore Quartette, addressed to the great patron of Arts, Maharaja Shivaji II, "Sarasa shikhamani neevani tsala nammiti." Set to dance by the dancer herself under the overall guidance of her guru, she specially mentioned her gratitude to both Nandini Ramani and Anupama Kylash for their help in better understanding the varnam.....

At the Shri Ram Centre, Kathak students of Sanskriti Foundation, the institution run by Gauri Diwakar, presented an evening of dance. With youngsters and the more advanced students participating, the program understandably, of varying standards, shared one pleasing feature, which was seeing all participants of different groups, turned out in simple salwar/kameez outfits of varying colours, deriving joy out of the entire enterprise.  

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Anita says...June 2026

May was a series of immensely theatrical spectacles. And none were about dance!

I will, of course, blend my month of observations and reflections into our world of dance, but not before casting a wider lens on the very idea of PERFORMITIVITY that has permeated every sphere of our waking moments.

I begin by converging the three grand events of Fashion, Sports and Politics. While they may represent entirely different worlds, in May, all three genres demonstrated a remarkable convergence of productivity, performance, precision and theatricality. Each became a grand stage where discipline and spectacle fused in ways that rivalled the dazzle of Broadway and the excesses of Las Vegas and Bollywood. 

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BJP zindabad! - Dance Matters: Column by Ashish Mohan Khokar

Bharatiya Jnana Parampara - BJP: A 3 day with over 30 delegates symposium took place on May 21-23 at Simla, capital of Himachal Pradesh at India's most prestigious think tank institution IIAS (Indian Institute of Advanced Study), currently headed by dynamic director Dr.Himanshu Chaturvedi. Dr Shashikumar Prabha is the chair. It was the first-ever dance parampara goshthi, on the scale and substance held here, or actually anywhere in India at a pan global level, not local, regional or even Indian.

Put together and pulled off by Ahmedabad's senior academic - dance guru Dr. Uma Anantani, this could easily be termed benchmark. Nothing ever on this scale outside of dance-specific institutions like the national SNA, or regional Music Academies and sabhas and schools has been done with such depth and dignity.

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New perspectives - old themes - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

It is heartening to see that youngsters are on the lookout for new directions, with novel themes as base for performances. The more encouraging factor is that organisations like Bhagyam Fine Arts and Ideas are willing to sponsor such attempts, at the risk of not getting sizeable audiences. What with minds full of the archetype of the slim and shapely dancer performing, to watch Dakshina Vaidyanathan Baghel, the Bharatanatyam dancer present Ayoga Vaatsalya built round the anticipation and excitement of a mother-to-be, with the dancer herself now in the seventh month of pregnancy, was to say the least, out of the ordinary....

Aditi Mangaldas Dance Company Drishtikon Dance Foundation, in collaboration with Oddbird Theatre in the third of its Zeroing In series, presented a Jugalbandi of two art forms - Kathak and Bharatanatyam. The attempt is itself bold, for dancers of the two dance genres, exceptions apart, have not been known to work very closely. The mini auditorium, ideal for experimental theatre, with ticketed shows evoking a good response, aside from close performer audience interaction, accommodates about five rows of audience on chairs at the same level as the performers, with five to six rows beyond of galleried seating....

Once again, outside the conventional box of dancers, particularly in Kathak, is Sudip Chakraborty, trained initially in Kolkata's Kalakshetra in Bharatanatyam before branching out to Kathak under Kolkata teachers Pranab Sanyal and Sandip Mallik - to finally - (in his 17 years spent with this dance form) come under Jaikishen Maharaj in Delhi. Now running his institution Nirvana Arts Foundation, he has caught the public eye, with his ability (stemming from a deep seated interest in literature, and general reading) for fresh perspectives, to bear on what would be deemed, cliched themes.... 

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Prism - UNESCO and the BORI Natyasastra The Many Natyasastras in the One and the One in the Many - Dr. Avanthi Meduri

I offer here a brief meditation on UNESCO's inscription of the Natyasastra manuscript in the Memory of the World Register, cast as a staged conversation across time with the late Kapila Vatsyayan - our Kapilaji - whose life's work helped make India's Natyasastra traditions newly legible to the world.

In this exchange, I reflect on the relation between world heritage and lived history, between sastra and prayoga, and between the living historical Natyasastras that helped shape the twentieth-century revival of Bharatanatyam and Indian classical dance, placing these firmly on the global stage.

This staged conversation draws on my 2025 essay on the Natyasastra in The Oxford Handbook of Indian Dance, where I reflect on three historical Natyasastras through which the text entered Indian classical dance history, practice, training, pedagogy, and public performance - a question newly sharpened by UNESCO's 2025 inscription. 

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Reverential homage in Kamalini Samaradhanam spearheaded by Manasa - Art Without Frontiers - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Exactly a year after she left this world for her heavenly abode, those who had the opportunity of working with Kamalini Dutt, paid reverential homage to a person who defied being categorized. Guru, mentor, choreographer, Doordarshan producer, aesthetic and spiritual guide, artistic collaborator, most valued friend et al, Kamalini represented above all human qualities of immeasurable value. An unfortunate accident having put paid to an active performing career in dance in the seventies, for one who had mastered the art under renowned Sikkil Ramaswamy Pillai, and had her arangetram when she was a seven year old, with over two years spent on mastering a varnam, without giving in to self-pity, she set about carving an equally, if not more valuable future for herself - transferring her considerable energies to spreading the message of Indian dance to the general public, through her work in Doordarshan.

Who can forget the innumerable National Programs of Dance and Music, she presided over? With her mastery over how the camera looked at movement, she released more than a thousand productions. Apart from ushering in new trends, her expertise in being able to control and direct multiplicity of cameras in a program, cut out a great deal of needless work at the editing table. And later as Deputy Director General of Central Doordarshan Archives, the material she collected and left behind, particularly for dissemination, remains unparalleled. All this, while suffering in stoic silence, acute physical pain and discomfort from rheumatoid arthritis.

One has to note that it was left to Sharon Lowen, an American citizen, who spent years learning Odissi under Kelucharan Mohapatra, and has made India her home, teaching Odissi, to mount this evening of homage, which no other Indian amongst the many who benefited from Kamalini's instructions, had thought of. 

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