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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
Simone Barbier (Simkie) and Nyota Inyoka, American dancer Esther Sherman (popularly known as Ragini Devi), Australian ballerina Louise Lightfoot, followed by many others (see Khokar 1985).
The Euro-American dancers, with their untiring passion for training in Indian dance during the early decades of the 20th century opened new avenues and set the pace for female participation in the classic dances in India. Ironically, American dancer Esther Sherman or 'Ragini Devi' as she was called, was one of the earliest non-Indian females to gain admission for training in Kathakali in spite of the conservative stance taken by Kerala Kalamandalam against the inclusion of women in their troupes. In 1932, the same institution. also commenced training in Mohiniattam, reviving a female dance form of the region. In Kolkatta, noted poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore introduced Manipuri and Ram Lila dances. inspiring female students at Shantiniketan, an institution renowned for reviving Indian cultural values and for its focus on artistic excellence. His Bengali poems and plays also restored the respectable status of dance in drama and the society at large.
At a time when female dancing in Kathak was relegated to the social disrepute of courtesans and "nautch" dancing girls, Leila Sokhey, educated in Britain, was the earliest upper caste female to dare train in this form. Taking the stage name, 'Menaka,' she choreographed several dance-dramas encouraging north Indian women from upper caste families to perform on the public stage with elegance and dignity. She was the first upper caste female Indian dancer to have been honored with awards at the 1936 Dance Olympiad in Berlin (see Joshi 1989).
In the midst of a pan-Indian movement proposing the abolition of the devadasi system,14 a courageous brahmin lawyer of Madras, E. Krishna Iyer took a bold decision to stage the refined traditional dance of a devadasi duo, the Kalyani sisters, at the Madras Music Academy, one of the most elite institutions, the membership of which listed the cream of the Madras brahmin society. His initiation inspired Rukhmini Devi Arundale (1904-1986), also a brahmin lady, to become a key figure in encouraging upper caste women to train and perform artistic dance as an expression of their devotion to God (see Ramnarayan 1984). In 1936, Rukhmini Devi founded the Kalakshetra, which has produced, since, some of the best known Bharatanatyam dancers in India. Following the footsteps of the Kalyani sisters, few selected devadasis, namely, T. Balasaswati, Varalakshmi, Bhanumati and others, ventured to take to the stage, intensely promoting the inherent "purity" and the devotional aspects of their traditional dance. Nevertheless, with the legal abolition of the Devadasi system of temple dancing in Madras Presidency in 1947, Sadir, Dasiattam or the dance of the devadasi came to be associated with disgrace and survived only on the peripheral margins of the society. The popularity of the newly revived dance, Bharatanatyam, threatened the survival of its own precursor, the all-male Bhagavata Mela Natakam of Tamil Nadu (see Shah 2002; 2003). Such nationalist reforms obligated a transference of the artistic dance from the realm of the devadasi to that of the upper caste society women; from the precincts of the temple to that
Some Issues on the Gender Politics in the Bhakti Genre of Indian...
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