Balasaraswati

Balasaraswati (13 May 1918-9 February 1984) was a celebrated Indian dancer, and her rendering of Bharatanatyam, a classical dance style, made this style of dancing of south India well known in different parts of India, as also many parts of the world.

Early life

She was born in a family of devadasis, the temple dancers of India, and her family was having a long tradition of music and dancing. Her mother was Jayammal, who had to give up dancing in favor of music on account of certain constraints. She wanted her daughter to become a great dancer. Balasaraswati’s rigorous dancing training, imparted by her grandmother, commenced when she was just a toddler of two or three year. At the age of four, her formal dancing training was commenced, and her first teacher was Kandappan Pillai, a fine dancer and musician of his time. Her younger brothers were the musicians T. Ranganathan and T. Viswanathan, who would both become prominent teachers and scholars in the United States.

Her debut as a dancer took place in the Kamakshi Amman Temple of Kanchipuram (Tamilnadu), when she was a child of seven. The word has gone around that the granddaughter of the celebrated dancer-devadasi, Veena Dhanammal, was to perform at the Temple, and a large crowd has gathered to watch the performance. The child did not exhibit any nervousness, and she enthralled the watchers with her rhythm and precision of movements. The event set her on a long and illustrious career of dancing.

Recognition

India Today, one of the leading news magazine of India, based on a survey, classified her as one of the 100 prominent Indians who have shaped the destiny of India. She is also considered amongst the one hundred [http://www.tamilnation.org/hundredtamils/balasaraswati.htm] Tamils.

Balasaraswati achieved during her illustrious dancing career wide recognition and a number of awards. She was conferred upon an honorary doctorate by Rabindra Bharati University. Douglas M. Knight, Jr., Independent Scholar and Musician, Portland, Maine was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 for writing a book on Balasaraswati.

References

* "BALASARASWATI", by Dr. V.K Narayana Menon, Inter-National Culture Center, 16 Hailey Road, New Delhi 1, INDIA
*"India’s 50 Most Illustrious Women" (ISBN 81-88086-19-3) by Indra Gupta

ee also

* Bharatanatyam
* Mani Madhava Chakyar

External links

* http://www.balasaraswati.com
* http://kpoursine.hostcentric.com/balasara.htm
* [http://centerforworldmusic.org/schools/three.html Video of Balasaraswati] at Center for World Music
* [http://tamilnation.org/hundredtamils/balasaraswati.htm Biography at "One hundred tamils"]