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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