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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
traditions (see Pattabhiraman 1988-89). Even though women were forbidden training in the Natya Mela of Andhra, some Kuchipudi brahmins set out to teach female disciples. Years later, Kuchipudi guru Vedantam Lakshmi Narayana Sastry (1880-1957) developed a solo style more suitable for female dancers, integrating Kuchipudi with the repertoire performed by the kalavanthulu, female temple ritual dancers of Andhra. Furthermore, Guru Vempatti Chinna Satyam further modernized the form in the 1950s. "It was only after its modernization that Kuchipudi was awarded its "classical" status by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi. With the classicisation of Kuchipudi, and of its nation-wide performance by upperclass urban female dancers (Shanta Rao, Shobha Naidu, and Swapnasundari), the popularity of the original Natya Mela (dance-drama) tradition pursued by the male bhagvatulus faded gradually" (Shah 2002).
Transformations in the notions of gender during the first half of the 20th century:
The women's liberation project in late 19 and 20th century India was directly and intricately connected to nationalism. A unique feature of the women's liberation in India is that leading male nationalists pioneered the social reform: Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Keshabchandra Sen promoted the cause of women's and the girl child's education. In the religious sphere also, leading religious leaders initiated and appointed women ascetics as their successors. Arya Samaj leaders reformed the prevailing situation by educating young girls in the recitation of Vedic mantras. Nancy Falk noted that, "women have been commandeered to advance the nation, to preserve the nation, to free the nation, to construct the nation" (1995:300). And there has been no looking back since.
The nationalist movements against the British rule and the eventual independence from colonialism necessitated a resurgence of traditional Indian values on the one hand and a socio-cultural reformation on the other (see Sen 1979). As a result, during the first half of the twentieth century, performing arts in India witnessed momentous transformations the most significant one being the introduction of upper caste (mostly brahmin) women in dancetheatre forms performed on the proscenium stage and the restoration of a respectable status for both the traditional arts and the artists in the formation of a renewed Indian identity. Several factors consequenced a transgressive endeavor on the part of elite brahmin women in attempting to perform artistic dance on the public stage: firstly, the social movement for abolition of the Devadasi system of temple ritual performance in the South (from 1880s to 1947) (see Srinivasan 1985, 1984, 1983; Kersonboom-Story 1987; Jorden 1989; Khokar 1987; Marglin 1985; Parker 1997); secondly, the popularization of Indian dance in Europe and the Americas by American Modem dancers Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, ballerina Anna Pavlova and her trainees, La Franchi sisters, followed by Uday Shankar and Ram Gopal during the period 1905-1940s; thirdly, American dancers Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn's elaborate performance tour in India (1925-26) reinventing Indian dance as they perceived it; and lastly, the passionate aspirations of several Euro-American dancers to train in Indian dance after the 1930s Russell Meriwether Hughes (popularly known as "La Meri"), French dancers માર્ચ, ૨૦૦૯
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