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Just the facts
A Canadian scholar-dancer
discusses the sacred and the
profane in BharatanatyamBHARTANATYAM has seen a tremendous change in its presentation techniques and place in society in the last hundred years. There have been two streams in this art form; one led by T. Balasaraswathi who belonged to a traditional devadasi famil, and the other by Rukmini Devi Arundale, the herald of the new version for th econcert stage. Of course there have been other s who provided the branches to the tree. A Canadian scholar-dancer, Anne-maria Gaston, dispassionately documents the journey of bharatanatyam in her new book, Bharatanatyan, From Temple to Theatre.
The book reveals an ignored lineage that lies outside formal history. That lineage is the work of people for whom a satisfactory name has never been found. They persisted in evolving their images of dance out of an inner compulsion stong enough to carry them through a lifetime either for professional support or for sheer artistry.
"Practically all Indian performing arts trace their origin to religion or have close ties with it, " says Gaston. Some are devoted to presentation in religious contexts and are usually the preserve of hereditary practitioners. in south India, the dancers, dances teacher and mucisians of the Isai Vellala community constitute a distinctive group of hereditary performing artist.
The women dancers who worked in the temples were known as devadasis and their main duty was to dance as part of the ritual. The devadasi and her dance were important adjunts to both religious and secular occasions.
Until 1920, dancing in south India was the preserve of these devadsis. But in the late 19th century, a public campaign was begun to abolish the institution of devadasi (in which girls were dedicated to the temple and married to the God but also had liaisons with important patrons). This campaign ended in the passing of the devadasi bill whih banned dancing as a part of the temple ritual. The quality of the dance declined for lack of patronage.
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