Tanjavur Balasaraswati ( ibid. தஞ்சாவூர் பாலசரஸ்வதி ; May 13, 1918 - February 9, 1984) is the legendary Indian dance bharatnatyam , the hereditary devadasi [3] [4] Tanjavura ( Tamil Nadu ), a student of K. Kandappan Pillai. She was known as a magnificent dancer in various parts of India and abroad. Thanks to her contribution, the Bharatnatyam style has become known in many parts of the world.
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| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship [d] |
In 1957 she was awarded the Padma Bhushan , and in 1977 the Padma Vibhushan , one of the highest state awards in India [5] . In 1981 she was awarded the title of Sangita Kalasikhamani from the Indian Society of Fine Arts ( Chennai ).
Content
Childhood and Arts Education
Balasaraswati was a representative of the seventh generation of traditional dance and music performers ( devadasi ). Her ancestor Papammal was a musician and dancer at the court of Thanjavur in the middle of the 18th century [6] . Her grandmother, Vina Dhanammal (1867-1938), is one of the most influential Indian musicians of the early 20th century. Her mother, Jayammal (1890-1967) was a singer, she encouraged Balasaraswati to study the arts and accompanied during the training.
Balasaraswati studied music in the family from early childhood. The training began when she was four years old under the guidance of an outstanding dance teacher K. Kandappan Pillai, a member of the famous Thanjavur Nattuvanar family [6] .
Her younger brothers were musicians T. Ranganathan and T. Viswanathan, both of whom became prominent performers and teachers in India and the USA. Her daughter, Lakshmi Knight (1943-2001), became an outstanding performer in the style of her mother. Her grandson Aniruddha Knight continues to dance in a family style today and is the artistic director of the Ball Music and Dance Association in the United States and Balasaraswati Dance School in India. Her son-in-law Douglas M. Knight Jr. wrote her biography “Balasaraswati: Her Art & Life” [3] with the support of the Guggenheim Fellowship (2003). The famous Indian filmmaker Satyajit Rai made a documentary based on her work [7] .
Career
The stage debut, arangetram , Balasaraswati took place in 1925 [8] . She became the first classical Indian dancer to perform outside of South India , giving a performance in 1934 in Calcutta .
As a teenager, she was noticed by the choreographer Uday Shankar , who became an ardent promoter of her performances [9] . And during the 1930s, it captured the imagination of viewers across India. She continued her performing career, which attracted international critical attention and earned the respect of great dancers such as Shambhu Maharaj, Margot Fontaine , Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham .
Interest in Bharatanatyam increased in the 1950s, when the public became interested in promoting a unique Indian art form. With the support of the Academy of Music in Madras, Balasaraswati founded a dance school. In the early 1960s, she increasingly traveled the world, with performances in East Asia , Europe and North America . Later that decade, during the 1970s and early 1980s, she repeatedly visited the United States as a teacher and performer. Among other things, she performed at Wesleyan University (Middleton, Connecticut ), California Institute of the Arts (Valencia), Mills College ( Auckland , California ), University of Washington ( Seattle ), at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (Beckett, Massachusetts ). Thanks to her international performances, as well as her activities in India, especially in Madras, Balasaraswati not only introduced a wide audience to the traditional style of bharatanatyam , but also trained many new performers [9] .
Recognition
She has received numerous awards in India, including the Presidential Award from Sangit Natak Academy (1955), Padma Vibhushan from the Government of India for her contribution to the field of art (1977) [9] and from the Madras Academy of Music, the highest award South India for musicians (1973).
In a 1977 review by The New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselhoff described her as one of the “greatest performers in the world” [6] . India Today , one of the leading news publications in India, according to a poll of citizens, included it in the list of 100 prominent Indians who shaped the fate of India.
She was the only non-Western dancer included in the collection of the Dance Heritage Coalition, Treasures of American Dance: Top 100 (2000).
Balasaraswati about Bharatanatyam
She not only had excellent mastery of technology and her body, she was a true philosopher and poet. Her words about Bharatnatyam brilliantly accurately reflect the essence and peculiarity of this art.
Balasaraswati about Bharatanatyam style:
The greatest blessing to Bharatanatyam is his ability to control the mind. Most of us are not able to truly renounce meditation, even while remaining inactive. On the other hand, there is no inaction in Bharatanatyam, we move, but the harmony of movements becomes the cause of the concentration that we are trying to find. And the burden of action is forgotten in the beautiful spell of art.
She spoke of sacrifice in the art of dance:
Bharatanatyam is an art that sacrifices the body, without acknowledging the high value of it ... A dancer who dissolves his Self in rhythm and music, makes his body an instrument of experience and expression of spiritual experience.
She always insisted on the principle of maintaining the order of traditional performance:
The traditional presentation of Bharatnatyam is a combination of diverse aesthetic and psychological elements that brings complete pleasure. To change this sequence because it is considered “boring” is to destroy the integrity of aesthetic pleasure.
In popular culture
Bengali director Satyajit Rai made a documentary about Balasaraswati - “Bala” (1976) [7] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 SNAC - 2010.
- ↑ 1 2 Encyclopædia Britannica
- ↑ 1 2 Temple Dancer . The Indian Express . Date of treatment July 21, 2017.
- ↑ CJ Fuller, Haripriya Narasimhan. Tamil Brahmans: The Making of a Middle-Class Caste . - University of Chicago Press, 2014 .-- P. 206. - 288 p. - ISBN 978-0226152745 .
- ↑ Padma Awards Directory (1954-2013 ) . Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Date of treatment July 21, 2017. Archived November 15, 2014.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Anna Kisselgoff. Balasaraswati is dead at 64; Classical dancer from India . The New York Times (February 10, 1984). Date of treatment July 22, 2017.
- ↑ 1 2 SK Singh. Bala: A film by Satyajit Ray . SatyajitRay.org. Date of treatment July 21, 2017.
- ↑ Veejay Sai. Tanjore Balasaraswati: The empress of Bharatanatyam . Mint (June 17, 2017). Date of treatment July 22, 2017.
- ↑ 1 2 3 T. Balasaraswati - article from the British Encyclopedia