Step in Time

An orthodox Hindu who married a much older English educationist way back in the 1920s. An anti-Nautch campaigner who reinvented the devadasi...

An orthodox Hindu who married a much older English educationist way back in the 1920s. An anti-Nautch campaigner who reinvented the devadasi dance Sadir as Bharatanatyam. The founder of an international dance school who would easily have been president of India.

Who exactly was this woman who is counted amongst the top 100 Indians who made modern India happen? Born to a 8216;reformist8217; Tambrahm family in Madras, Rukmini Devi8217;s first brush against the conventional was in 1920 when she scandalised the orthodoxy by marrying, at 16, the much older educationist Dr George Sydney Arundale, an affiliate of Annie Besant8217;s controversial Theosophical Society.

Her art took an even more incidental route. Not many know that Rukmini Devi was once an 8216;8216;anti-Nautch8217;8217; campaigner in her 1950 book on Indian dance, introduced by Ram Gopal, English balletomane Kay Ambrose sneers at that. For it was the flamboyant E Krishna Iyer who pioneered the rescue of Sadir from its debauched reputation.

But in 1928, Anna Pavolva, the world8217;s greatest ballerina, came to dance in Bombay. The Arundales travelled up to catch her show before boarding a boat to Australia. Pavlova happened to be a fellow passenger and Rukmini Devi, by then a big fan, began to learn from Pavlova8217;s senior soloiste Cleo Nordi and even performed in Sydney. However, Pavlova nudged Rukmini Devi to learn Indian dance.

Back home, Iyer took her to see the best devadasi dancers of the day. Stunned, the young arista yearned after this fragile, beautiful art. She persuaded the great Pandanallur Meenakshisundaram Pillai of the Isai Vellalar performing community to teach her.

These days, though none of the present race of dance pygmies stands one jampot high to her stature, it8217;s become a 8216;8216;subaltern8217;8217; fashion to accuse Rukmini Devi of 8216;8216;appropriating8217;8217; the devadasis8217; dance and 8216;8216;sanitising8217;8217; it. In truth, no 8216;respectable8217; person went near the temple dancers until Krishna Iyer challenged and convinced 8216;society8217;. Rukmini Devi8217;s refined inputs in costume, presentation and choreography took his work much further to an institutional level, providing a larger, democratic process of sharing, in a place that guaranteed both safety and learning to the emerging Indian woman8212;and man8212;who longed to dance.

More, Kalakshetra, her international dance school, became a nucleus for excellence in composition, teaching and performance. A gurukul atmosphere of satvik food and strict timetables made for a focused stay, vivified by Rukmini Devi8217;s other passions of vegetarianism, craft, weaving and animal welfare. She could have become President of India in 1977 when Morarji Desai offered her the post. But she chose to abide with the veena, venu and anklets.

Leap Year8217;s day 1904 was Rukmini Devi8217;s birthday and this February 29, S Rajaram, director of the Kalakshetra Foundation, Chennai, along with the institution8217;s governing board, will celebrate her centenary with a day-long programme of dance and music in Kalakshetra.

Meanwhile, the sarkar has laid on a week of events at Delhi8217;s Kamani Hall and a photo exhibition at the Lalit Kala gallery curated by Dr Sunil Kothari, designed by Sumant Jayakrishna.

PRIMA ASSOLUTA

In ballet language, 8216;prima ballerina assoluta8217; means the 8216;absolute top dancer8217;. With the Indian instinct for hagiography lives of saints, some of Rukmini Devi8217;s many admirers sound as if they would so canonise her. But what she did best was to energise and inspire three generations of classical performers. Kalakshetra, founded on a hundred wooded acres in south Madras on the Coromandel coast in 1936, was declared 8216;8216;an institution of national importance8217;8217; by an act of Parliament in 1993. Its alumni at home and abroad went forth to direct the departments of dance and music at universities and colleges all over India or became star performers, while Rukmini Devi8217;s 25 ballets and annual dance festival are living heritage.

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Today her legacy is a dwindled thing as she herself foretold before her death at 82 in 1986, despite an annual roster of 225 students spread over a five-year course of music and dance. But though it8217;s a standing Bharatanatyam joke that 8216;8216;Kalakshetra8217;s love arrows always strike at an angle of 45deg;8217;8217;, her legatees include formidable gurus and dancers like Adyar Lakshmanan, CV Chandrasekhar, niece Sharada Hoffman, Krishnaveni, the Dhananjayans and Leela Samson, besides those who returned from Kalakshetra to enrich their regional styles and those from other regions who enriched Bharatanatyam.

And towering resplendently over all in public memory is early Kalakshetra breakaway, the prima assoluta of Indian dance: Yamini Krishnamurthi, who at 28, became the youngest Padma Shri in 1968, taking modern Indian audiences to heights unscaled after her.