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SRIMANTA SANKARADEVA - THE LIVING LEGEND, a book by Janice Darbari was released in Chennai in the first week of September. The book throws light on the 15th century saint's contribution to the Assamese culture. |
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Kalyani Kutty Amma has acted in a dozen plays and four Malayalam movies 'Rarichen Enna Powran', 'Asuravithu', 'Gandharva Kshetram', 'Randu Mukhangal'. She has also written four full-length ballets, of which three have been performed. |
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Chandralekha has collaborated with Andy Warhol, Merce Cunningham and David Tudor and produced a film on body culture for The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art and another for the BBC. |
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Australian dancer Louise Lightfoot studied Manipuri dances apart from Kathakali and Bharatanatyam. She was the first Australian dancer to visit Manipur. She loved Manipur and started learning the Meitei language. She wrote a book on Manipuri dance called 'Dance Rituals of Manipur. An introduction to Meitei Jagoi'. Louise also recorded several selections of Meitei ritual music. These were later reproduced by Folkway Records of US called 'Manipur Ritual - Music of India'. |
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Saliamangalam, Soolamangalam, Melattur, Tepperumanallur and Oothukkadu are the major villages of Tanjavur that are associated with Bhagavathamela Natakams. |
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Prahalada Charitamu is performed on Sri Narasimha Jayanthi at Saliamangalam with focus on the emergence of the Man-Lion God. The Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Bhagavata Mela Bhakta Samajam has been observing this ritualistic worship with great reverence and devotion. It is said that this performing tradition is 30 years older than that at Melattur and has been going on for 356 years without interruption. 75 year old Srinivasan, one of the senior traditional artists of the group has performed the role of Leelavathi for 35 years in Prahalada Charitamu. |
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Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Bhagavata Mela Natya Sangam is the other active group led by S Natarajan who has now completed 61 years of uninterrupted participation in the shows in front of Sri Lakshmi Narasimhaswami temple. Every year, Melattur Natarajan travels from Dubai for this purpose. He has worked with the veteran Balu Bagavathar, also K.P. Kittappa Pillai, who has composed a set of jathis for Natarajan and named them Melattur jathis. Natarajan excels in female roles. . |
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Kalakshetra Publications has brought out a 2-volume set of books on Rukmini Devi costing Rs.2000. The first volume titled RUKMINI DEVI - BHARATANATYA has breathtaking photographs of Rukmini Devi, mostly in black and white. The second volume titled RUKMINI DEVI - DANCE DRAMA deals with the plays and dance dramas produced by her. Photographs are by Conrad Woldring and C Nachiappan who had shot about 5000 photos of her during her career and these two volumes are also testimony to their talent. Supplementing the photographs are articles written by Betsan Coats, James Cousins, K Chandrasekharan, Barbara Sellon, Sarada Hoffman and Rukmini Devi herself and others who were associated with her. |
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