Indian dancing

THE REVIVAL OF INDIAN DANCING

jealously guarded by wzdwans, or scholars, whose proud inheritance was this art practised in the temples of Shiva.

_ The history of the renaissance of Indian dancing must record in

bold letters the names of such venerable men as Menakshi Sun-

deram Pillay, the late Vzdwan Ponniah Pillay, Muthukumaran, Cho-

kalingam, and female exponents like Madhuramba and Gowrie. It

is they who saved Bharata Natyam from oblivion.

Up in the north the comparatively young art of Kathak, dating back only a few hundred years, was tended almost as if it were a holy fire by Brindadin and Kalkaprasad Maharaj. The lattet’s three sons, Lachchu, Achchanand, and Shambhu Maharaj, continued to ptactise the art that was theirs by virtue of lineage. To this company also belong Jylal, Sundar, and Hanuman Prasad.

In Assam, Manipuri has been kept alive by the efforts of exponents such as Amobi Singh, Naba Kumar, and the young Bipin.

It was only in the twenties of the present century that members of the upper classes started to take an interest in the oldest of Indian atts. They went to the masters in their remote villages and brought back sufficient knowledge of the technique to teach the city dwellers. SOME PIONEERS

Among the early pioneers who took Indian dancing from town to town and beyond the frontiers of the country was the late Menaka. Wife of Colonel Sir S. Sokhey, a scientist and Director of the Haffkine Institute, a woman of breeding and refinement, Menaka was not content with the life of the idle rich. She defied the convention which ranked dancing as the monopoly of devadasis and harlots, and acquired a thorough knowledge of the technique of Kathak. Her solo numbets such as Usha, The Dance of Devotion, and The Moghul Serenade won high praise wherever she went. But, an admirer of the Russian Ballet, her heart was set on presenting to the world similar spectacular dance themes based on Indian myths.

Menaka’s first ballet was the Ras-Lee/a; her most ambitious was based on Kalidasa’s Aguimitramalavika. She achieved the height of her triumph when, with her troupe, she won the International

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