Bharatanatyam Daners — Awards, Gharanas and Gods
Know about the dancers of Bharatnatyam Classical Dance.
Mrinalini Vikram Sarabai
She was the founder and director of the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, an institute for imparting training in dance, drama, music and puppetry, in the city of Ahmedabad.
Awards
- Padma Shri in 1965
- Padma Bhushan in 1992
- Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Fellowship in 1988.
- Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1994
- Gold medal by the Mexican Government for her choreography for the Ballet Folklorico of Mexico.
Achievements
- Darpana Academy of Performing Arts celebrated its golden jubilee on 28 December 1998, with the announcement of the annual “Mrinalini Sarabhai Award for Classical Excellence”, in the field of classical dance.
- Mrinalini Sarabhai: The Artist and Her Art, a documentary film based on her life released in 2012.
- The first recipient of the Nishagandhi Puraskaram, an annual award of the Government of Kerala. The award was presented in 2013.
- She was awarded the Dhirubhai Thakar Savyasachi Saraswat Award in 2014.
- On 11 May 2018, Google Doodle commemorated her 100th birthday.
Mungara Yamini Krishnamurthy
Indian Dancer of Bharatnatyam and Kuchipudi, born in Madanapalli, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh. She was brought up in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu.
- Yamini Krishnamurthy debuted in 1957 in Madras.
- She is honoured to be the Asthana Nartaki (resident dancer) of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam.
- She was also known as the “torch bearer” of the Kuchipudi form of dance.
- She imparts dance lessons to younger dancers at her institute, Yamini School of Dance, Hauz Khas, New Delhi.
- She released her autobiography, “A Passion For Dance”, a book well received by the readers.
Awards
- Padma Shri in 1968
- Padma Bhushan in 2001
- Padma Vibhushan in 2016
- She was honoured with the “Natya Shastra” award by the Shambhavi School of Dance at “Nayika-Excellence Personified” on the occasion of Women’s Day on 8 March 2014.
Rukmini Devi Arundale
She was the first woman in Indian history to be nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India.
The most important revivalist of Bharatanatyam from its original ‘sadhir’ style prevalent amongst the temple dancers, the Devadasis, she also worked for the re-establishment of traditional Indian arts and crafts.
She espoused the cause of Bharata Natyam which was considered a vulgar art. She ‘sanitised’ and removed the inherent eroticism of Sadhir to make it palatable to Indian upper-caste elites and the British morality of the era.
In January 1936, she along with her husband, established Kalakshetra, an academy of dance and music, built around the ancient Indian Gurukul system, at Adyar, Chennai. Today the academy is a deemed university under the Kalakshetra Foundation and is situated in its new 100-acre (0.40 km2) campus in Tiruvanmiyur, Chennai, where it shifted, in 1962.
Keenly interested in animal welfare, she was associated with various humanitarian organisations, and as a member of the Rajya Sabha, was instrumental in the legislation for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and later set up the Animal Welfare Board of India, under her chairmanship in 1962. She remained on the board until her demise in 1986.
She did much work to promote vegetarianism in the country. She was vice president of the International Vegetarian Union for 31 years from 1955, until her death.
Awards and Honors
- Padma Bhushan (1956)
- Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1957)
- Desikothama (1972), Viswa Bharati University
- 1967 Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship
- Prani Mitra (1968), Friend of All Animals, (Animal Welfare Board of India)
- Kalidas Samman (1984), Govt of Madhya Pradesh
- D. Lit. (Honoris Causa), Indira Kala Sangit Vishwavidyalaya, Khairagarh, Chhattisgarh
- Queen Victoria Silver Medal, Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, London
- In addition to the roll of honour by The World Federation for the Protection of Animals, The Hague
- Honorary Doctorate, Wayne State University, United States
- Scrolls of Honour, County and City of Los Angeles
- In 2016, Google honoured Rukmini Devi on her 112th birthday with a doodle, and later in the month marking the 80th year of the Kalakshetra Foundation held, the ‘Remembering Rukmini Devi’ festival of music and dance.
- Google also featured her in the 2017 Google Doodle for International Women’s Day.
Mallika Sarabhai
Mallika Sarabhai is an activist and Indian classical dancer and actress from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The daughter of a classical dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai and space scientist Vikram Sarabhai, Mallika is an accomplished Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam dancer and performer who has specialized in using the arts for social change and transformation.
Awards
- The government of Gujarat awarded her with ‘Gaurav Puraskar’ for her contribution to the field of drama and dance.[19]
- She received the Padma Bhushan from the government of India.
- The French Government awarded her with a knight’s rank in the Order of Academic Palms in 2005 for her contribution to the field of drama and dance.
Padma Subrahmanyam
Padma Subrahmanyam (born 4 February 1943, in Madras), is an Indian classical Bharata Natyam dancer. She is also a research scholar, choreographer, teacher, Indologist and author.
She is famous in India as well as abroad; several films and documentaries have been made in her honour by countries such as Japan, Australia and Russia. She is well known as the developer and founder of the dance form Bharata Nrithyam.
Awards
- Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1983)
- Padma Bhushan (2003)
- Padma Shri (1981)
- Kalaimamani Award from the government of Tamil Nadu
- Kalidas Samman from the federal government of Madhya Pradesh,
- Nishagandhi Puraskaram by the Government of Kerala in 2015,[9]
- Nada Brahmam from Narada Gana Sabha in Chennai,
- Bharata Sastra Rakshamani from the Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram.
- Nehru Award (1983) from the Soviet Union
- Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize from Japan, for “her contribution to development and harmony in Asia”
Alarmel Valli
Alarmel Valli is a leading Indian classical dancer and choreographer and the foremost exponent of the Pandanallur style in the Indian classical dance form, Bharatanatyam. She is widely acclaimed for her ability to turn traditional grammar into deeply internalized, personal dance poetry.
She made her stage debut at 9 ½ at The Indian Institute of Fine Arts, Madras, and was conferred the Natya Kala Bhushan award.
She founded The Dipasikha Dance Foundation in Chennai in 1984, where she teaches Bharatanatyam.
In 1991, Alarmel Valli was the second youngest dancer to be conferred the Padma Shri from the Government of India, after Vyjayanthimala.
Awards and Honours
- 1979: State award of Kalaimamani from Tamil Nadu Government
- 1980: Nrithya Vikas, from Sur Singar, Mumbai
- 1985: Nritya Choodamani, from Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai.
- 1991: Padma Sri from the Government of India.
- 1997: Awarded the Grande Medaille (Medal) by the City of Paris.
- 2001: Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, New Delhi
- 2004: Padma Bhushan from the Government of India
- 2004: Chevalier of Arts and Letters award from the Government of France
- 2012: Naatya Padmam from Brahma Gana Sabha, Chennai
- 2014: Natya Utsav Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai
- 2015: Natya Kala Acharya award from The Music Academy, Chennai
- 2018: Nritya Peroli Award from Karthik Fine Arts, Chennai
