PAPER: 3 Detail Study Of Bharatanatyam, Devadasis-Natuvnar, Nritya And Nritta, Different Bani-s, Present Status, Institutions, Artists Module 18 Institutions Of Bharatanatyam Present day Bharatanatyam banis / बानी and schools are aplenty. There are many branches of main banis and some as far as in New Jersey in USA or Ukhrul in Manipur! Since Bharatanatyam has spread far and wide, each dancer is adding something to what was learnt and trying to extend its boundaries and body. Many dancers are also teachers today, so they are adding new poses or postures and calling it sub banis or schools. Schools today mean individual teaching establishments, not a generic bani or style. It means in one city itself, say small town like Mysore or Baroda, there could be ten schools of Bharatanatyam. Each teaching same dance, differently. In that, there is no standardization. In one area of a big metro like Chennai or Bangalore, Mylapore or Malleswaram, there are over a dozen teachers teaching from same bani differently. This is not to break away as much as what one learnt from a guru and how much. Schools of Bharatanatyam today within one city can be in hundreds, especially nerve centre of dance like Chennai. The Dhananjayans, Chandrasekhars, Ambika Buch, Savitri Jagannath Rao, M.V. 1 Narasimhachari and Vasanthalakshmi, Sheejith Krishna, P.T. Narendran, Shijith Nambiar and Parvathy Menon teach the Kalakshetra style. J. Suryanarayanamurthy, a disciple of the Dhananjayans, is a popular teacher. Sreelatha Vinod, Tulsi Badrinath, Radhika Surajit, Shobana Bhalchandra are ardent disciples of the Dhananjayans and faithfully follow their teachers’ teachings. From the K.J. Sarasa school following the Vazhuvoor bani, her prominent disciples who are in turn teachers themselves are Srekala Bharath (Tejas School of Bharatanatyam), A. Lakshmanaswamy (Nritya Lakshnana), Shanmugha Sundaram (Sarasalaya), Lavanya Ananth, Kavitha Ramu, Swarnamalya Ganesh, and so on. They are all prominent dancers too. Nandini Ramani is an exponent and teacher of the Balasaraswathi style. She has no disciple particularly promoting the bani except her own daughter Sushama Ranganathan in Chennai and Jaan Freeman in New York. Parvathi Ravi Ghantasala’s Kala Pradarshini follows Krishnakumari Narendran’s style. In her school Abhinaya Natyalaya, Krishnakumari specializes in group productions and promotes Tamil works. Revathi Ramachandran is a disciple of Mangudi Dorairaj Iyer and in her school Kala Sadhanalaya, that’s the bani being followed. Urmila Sathyanarayanan learnt from both Dandayudhapani Pillai and K.J. Sarasa, so her style combines elements of both gurus. She says the difference in the banis is suggestive and may not be apparent to the lay person. She trains many talented students in her Natya Sankalpaa. In her school Kaladiksha, Meenakshi Chitharanjan propagates the Pandanallur style that she learnt from Chokkalingam Pillai and Subbaraya Pillai. Alarmel Valli of the same gurus and same 2 bani can boast of Minneapolis based Ranee Ramaswamy and her daughters Ashwini and Aparna as her popular disciples. Malavika Sarukkai is a disciple of Guru Kalyanasundaram Pillai of the Thanjavur style. Lakshmi Vishwanathan also follows the Thanjavur style having learnt under Guru Elappa Pillai. Both are soloists. Talented dancers Uma Namboodripad Sathya Narayanan, Sukanya Ravinder, Lakshmi Parthasarathy Athreya, Arupa Lahiri, Jai Quehani are all prominent disciples of Chitra Visweswaran trained in Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai style. Chitra’s student Zakir Hussain has carved his own path in the Vaishnaivite themes of his choice, even giving religious discourses. Bragha Bessell, Jayanthi Subramaniam, Roja Kannan, Sai Santosh Radhakrishnan follow Adyar Lakshman’s Kalakshetra style. After Kalanidhi Narayanan, her disciple Bragha is the abhinaya queen to whom scores go for training in abhinaya. Sudharani Raghupathy and Narthaki Nataraj follow their Guru Kittappa Pillai’s bani. Sudharani’s students Priya Murle, Nalini Prakash, Priya and Sheela Dixit, Padma Raghavan and many others bring pride to the school. Rhadha is a true Vazhuvoor bani exponent and Indira Rajan of Kutralam Ganesa Pillai bani has her own set of disciples. Nrithya Pillai is the granddaughter of Swamimalai Rajarathnam Pillai and represents his bani. Padma Subrahmanyam, of course, calls her style Bharata Nrithyam, and her prominent disciples include Gayatri Kannan, Mahati Kannan and Vineet Radhakrishnan. The movements are rounded; curvaceous hip movements, serpentine arm movements, leaps, extended throws of the legs mark this style. Bala 3 Devi Chandrasekhar in New Jersey and Jayashree Rajagopalan are true proponents of Padma’s bani but Janaki Rangarajan, though she has moved away from her guru’s Bharata Nrityam and calls her style as Bharatanatyam now, continues to bring in some of the curvy movements, rather perplexing at times! As one can see, just in Chennai itself, there are so many variations of Bharatanatyam styles and this above list is by no means exhaustive but just an indication of subtle variations in banis. In capital city like Delhi very few Bharatanatyam teachers are left. Saroja Vaidyanathan learnt from Lalitha of Triplicane who learnt from Guru Muthukumaran Pillai of the Kattumannar. Now Saroja is senior-most, active Bharatanatyam teacher of the capital city who teaches many hundred students. Her daughter-in-law Rama Vaidyanathan learnt from Yamini Krishnamurthy but now is part of Saroja Vaidyanathan school. So this is a good example for bani mixing with schools. Geeta Chandran learnt from Swarna Saraswathi (no relation of Balasarswati) and later from her own mridangist K. Dakshinamoorthy (brother of K. Dandayudhapani Pillai). What she teaches her students in Natyavruksha, is her own creative approach. Boundaries of banis are blurring today. Other teachers of Delhi are at proper schools like Triveni Kala Sangam or Sriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, where an American dancer Justin McCarthy is teaching Bharatanatyam! Many iconic dancers of yesteryears like Yamini Krishnamurthy also run schools and train students. Delhi has least number of Bharatanatyam teachers today as all seniors like Indrani Rahman, M.K. Saroja, Govindarajan Pillai (Sikkil Ramaswamy bani) have gone or moved city. Their students are seniors now like Jamuna Krishnan, Radha Marar and Jayalakshmi Eshwar. Navtej Johar trained 4 in Chennai Kalakshetra is more into contemporary themes and teaching of yoga. Delhi has more of Kathak, Orissi and Contemporary dance today than Bharatanatyam. In Bangalore, while there are some senior gurus left like Leela Ramanathan, Radha Shridhar, Bhanumathi and Shridhar-Anuradha, they cannot be ascribed to any one bani alone. They are all teaching Bharatanatyam as they learnt from their teachers like Narmada, Kalakshetra or Pandanallur (via U.S. Krishna Rao and Chandrabhaga Devi). M. Krishnamurthy imparts training in Kalakshetra style. The Mysore bani is followed by Lalitha Srinivasan, a student of Guru Keshavamurthy who later trained in abhinaya under Dr. K. Venkatalakshamma. Lots of younger male teachers of Bharatanatyam abound in Bangalore. In fact, maximum in any metro of India, like Sanjay Shantaram, Satyanarayana Raju, Praveen Kumar and Vasanth Kiran. Satyanarayana Raju and Praveen Kumar are both disciples of Narmada. Now Praveen trains under Guru C.V. Chandrasekhar of Kalakshetra bani. Many males are learning Bharatanatyam in Bangalore and teaching at junior level like Anil Iyer, Seshadri Iyengar and Mithun Shyam. Teachers who have lots of students are Anuradha Vikranth of Drishti, her gurus Nirupama- Rajendra (Nirupama learnt from Padma Subrahmanyam) while Sandhya-Kiran propagate the Kalakshetra bani since they are disciples of the Dhananjayans. Padmini Ravi remained a teacher to all of these and more before and she continues to dabble in dance. Vani Ganapathy remains Bharatanatyam star dancer of Bangalore and also teaches. Yamini Muthanna combines yoga and Bharatanatyam as does Vasundhara Doraswamy of Mysore. Rajaratnalaya Arts Foundation headed by Jayakamala Pandian follows Swamimalai SK 5 Rajaratnam Pillai’s bani. Bangalore has over 100 registered Bharatanatyam dance teaching schools. Guru C. Radhakrishna follows the Mysore style of Bharatanatyam as do his disciples Padmini Shreedhar, Pulakeshi Kasturi and Veena Sridhar. Jayalakshmi Alva, the first and foremost disciple of K.N. Dandayudhapani Pillai, also trained in abhinaya under Swarna Saraswati and Gowri Ammal. She founded the Sridevi Nrithya Kendra in Mangalore in 1974. She is ably supported by her daughter Araty Shetty. Once the pride of India in Bharatanatyam, Mumbai has very few Bharatanatyam schools of repute left. While Shanmukhananda Sabha promoted and offered a platform to+65 lots of Bharatanatyam teachers, it was Sri Raja Rajeswari Bharatha Natya Kala Mandir that created dancers, many known names in three generations like Vani Ganapathy and sisters, Namita Bodaji, Nandini Krishna, Malavika Sarukkai and many of today’s younger lot. Many reputed gurus like Mahalingam Pillai taught there and Guru Kalyanasundaram Pillai is one of the busiest Bharatanatyam gurus with legions of students. Kalasadan Institute of Fine Arts is another popular school founded by Guru Mani in 1954. Mani learnt from Karunambal and her husband Govindaraja Pillai under the guidance of Kuppiah Pillai of Sri Raja Rajeswari Bharatha Natya Kala Mandir. Some of the others teaching in Mumbai are Smt Jyothy Mohan, senior Guru Smt Raji Narayan, Dipak Parashar etc. Today Nalanda under Science