KALA MANJARI Fifty Years of Indian Classical Music and Dance in Singapore
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KALA MANJARI Fifty Years of Indian Classical Music and Dance in Singapore Edited by Dr. Seshan Ramaswami Sarita Alurkar-Sriram Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society DEdicaTION Published by Sun Media Pte Ltd for the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society Designed by Sun Media Pte Ltd Edited by Dr. Seshan Ramaswami and Sarita Alurkar-Sriram Kala Manjari Committee: Dr. Seshan Ramaswami, Sarita Alurkar-Sriram, Shankar Rajan, A. Sachithananthan and P.S. Somasekharan Printed in Singapore by Stamford Press Pte Ltd © Copyright 2015 by Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society. ISBN 978-981-09-4443-8 The views of the Writers and Contributors do not reflect the views of the Singapore Memory Project (SMP), which is a national initiative of the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) and is managed by the National Library Board, Singapore (NLB). No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the relevant Copyright Owner(s), if any, and the NLB. Whilst reasonable care has been undertaken to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication, the We dedicate this book to the pioneers of Indian classical music and dance in Singapore, Publisher, MCI and the NLB accept no legal liabilities whatsoever for the contents of this publication. the artistes, teachers and administrators, whose passion and untiring efforts have left us this legacy of a thriving Indian arts scene today, fifty years after Singapore’s independence. Supported by This project is supported under the Singapore Memory Project’s irememberSG Fund, as part of the Singapore50 (SG50) celebrations. CONTENTS Message from Prime Minister of Singapore Mr. Lee Hsien Loong Quote from Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi Message from High Commissioner of India to Singapore, Ms. Vijay Thakur Singh Preface.............................................................................................................................. 1 1. The Pre-Independence Years: Pioneering Artistes and Institutions.................................... 7 Shankar Rajan 2. The Post-Independence Years: Awakening and Maturing of the Indian Performing Arts..... 31 Shankar Rajan 3. The 2000s: New Venues, New Festivals and New Arrivals................................................. 53 Shankar Rajan 4. Outside the ‘Big 4’: Inception and Growth of Independent Artistes and Institutions............ 75 Dr. Seshan Ramaswami 5. Evolution of North Indian Art Forms in Singapore............................................................... 100 Sarita Alurkar-Sriram 6. Bridging Cultures: Impact of the Indian Arts on Multi-Racial Singapore.............................. 117 Dr. Siri Rama 7. Rhythm of the Arts in Hindu Temples................................................................................. 129 Sushma Somasekharan and Eswaran Sukumar 8. The India Connection......................................................................................................... 140 Shankar Rajan 9. The Enablers of the Indian Performing Arts: Government, Media, the Indian High Commission, Donors and Event Managers................................................ 156 Dr. Chitra Varaprasad, Dr. Uma Rajan, Shankar Rajan and Dr. Seshan Ramaswami 10.Conclusion........................................................................................................................ 185 Dr. Seshan Ramaswami Appendices A A Chronology of Significant Events in Singapore’s Indian Performing Arts History.... 191 B List of Winners in the National Arts Council Indian Music Competition...................... 192 C List of Abbreviations................................................................................................. 196 D Photo Credits........................................................................................................... 197 E List of Interviewees.................................................................................................. 203 F References.............................................................................................................. 206 G Biographies of Authors............................................................................................. 207 MR. LEE HSIEN LOONG SHRI NAREndra MODI PRIME MINISTER OF SINGAPORE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA On Singapore’s 50th anniversary, it is timely “We have ancient relations of trade, religion, that the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society culture, art and traditions. We have enriched has published “Kala Manjari”. This book tells each other through our interaction.” the personal stories of leading Indian classical music and dance artistes who have contributed [Opening Statement at the to our vibrant cultural scene over the years. 12th India-ASEAN Summit at Nay Pyi Taw, It also recounts how the Government, the Myanmar, on 12 November 2014] media, the temples and the community came together to promote Indian classical music SHRI NARENDRA MODI and dance in Singapore. It testifies to the efforts of a minority community to preserve its own cultural heritage and traditions, while integrating into our multi-racial and multi- cultural nation. Congratulations! MR. LEE HSIEN LOONG MS. VIJAY THAKUR SINGH HIGH COMMISSIONER OF INDIA TO SINGAPORE As we celebrate fifty years of India’s diplomatic ties with Singapore, Kala Manjari is a timely and eloquent commemoration of five decades of performance practice of the classical Indian dance and music in Singapore. This has been possible due to the efforts of the artistes as well as those who promote art and culture as also art lovers. As this book illustrates, the expressive and vibrant classical Indian arts are timeless and global in their appeal. I am glad that the High Commission of India, Singapore, in association with numerous Singaporean organisations, has played a role in the propagation of the Indian arts over the years. We look forward to continuing this partnership. Our cultural ties go back a long way. These links have and will continue to be a strong binding force between our peoples for future generations. Congratulations to SIFAS on this delightful book, which is a testament to the strong ties between our two nations! KALA MANJARI PREFACE PREFACE ala Manjari literally means “a bouquet of Hindustani music (vocal and instrumental), and art”. What we were tasked to do in this all the major classical dance forms of India, to the Kproject commissioned by the National Library extent they were taught or performed in Singapore. Board (NLB) as part of the Singapore Memory This meant that we would consciously avoid Project’s (SMP) irememberSG Fund to celebrate coverage of theatre in all Indian languages, and of Singapore’s 50th birthday this year, was to collect a the lighter forms of Indian music and dance such bouquet of “memories” from those associated with as film-based music and dance, devotional forms the Indian performing arts in the fifty years since of music, folk music, and folk/social forms of dance. Singapore’s independence. We decided to be more This definition would make for a more coherent ambitious. Rather than produce a coffee table book story, one in which all parts of the book would be with just photographs and snippets of memories, inter-related to each other. We also decided to we would attempt to write a comprehensive history cover the entire period from 1965 to 2015, including of the Indian performing arts in Singapore over some very recent developments. We would also the last fifty years, weaving the memories of all try to explore the history of the pre-independence those associated with the Indian arts – artistes, period, but in the short time that we had to write administrators, Government and temple officials, this book, our research on the early years of Indian and the enablers of the arts into this narrative. This music and dance is perhaps not as comprehensive proved to be quite a monumental task, especially as on the years since independence. since the book had to be ready in time for a launch during the year-long SG50 celebrations. The book is organised into two parts. The first part covers three historical periods, pre-independence SCOPE AND STRUCTURE (the entire period before 1965), 1965 to 2000, Our first task was to define the scope of the book. We when the arts scene slowly took shape, and 2000 decided that we would focus only on Indian classical to 2015, which saw rapid growth and development music and dance. We would include Carnatic and in many different ways for the Indian arts scene in 1 KALA MANJARI PREFACE KALA MANJARI PREFACE Singapore. The two post-independence chapters and some devoted to special topics that would be Over the course of the project, we went beyond our focus mainly on the development of the four major more cross-sectional, cutting across different time initial scope and interviewed many others, as new institutions in Singapore, which we dubbed the periods, such as the roles of the temples, of artistes names would be cited in the course of our research. ‘Big 4’, Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society (SIFAS), of non-Indian origin, and of the development of We tried to include as many profiles in this book Nrityalaya Aesthetics Society/Bhaskar’s Arts North Indian forms. We later assigned each broad