Opinion Remembering Kanak Rele: Born to dance

Noted danseuse Kanak Rele, who died in Mumbai on Wednesday at the age of 85, believed that she was born to dance. She let nothing stand in her way — not a childhood diagnosis of polio and not, later in life as she built her career as one of the country’s foremost classical dance performers and researchers, the lack of institutional support and a society that remained largely indifferent to its vast and varied cultural heritage.

This last obstacle was a formidable one, as Rele discovered during her journey to becoming one of India’s leading exponents of Mohiniyattam, a classical dance form from Kerala. Born Kanak Divecha into a nationalist family from Gujarat, she grew up steeped in the arts. As a young child, she spent a few years in Shantiniketan where she had moved with her mother and uncle, after her father died. Her uncle was studying at Kala Bhavana and she credited his work with shaping her aesthetic sensibilities. Her formal education in classical dance began with Kathakali under the tutelage of “Panchali” Karunakara Pillai. She also learned Bharatanatyam from the formidable K P Kitappa Pillai, but it was the “exquisite lyricism” of Mohiniyattam that captivated her. She began learning under Kalamandalam Rajalakshmi and as she was drawn deeper into the art form, she realised that a large part of her work would be to rescue it from neglect and vilification as a “devadasi” dance and formalising its structure.

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This she did — like she did everything else, including academics — with total dedication and eventually set up the Nalanda Nritya Kala Mahavidyalaya in Mumbai. Driven by her conviction that no traditional performing art form should be studied in isolation, she taught generations of students not only dance, but also its deep links to the music, literature and philosophy of the land. If today Mohiniyattam is one of the eminent classical dance forms of India, some of the credit goes to Rele’s unflagging devotion to it.