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 2023 |
| * Sharon Lowen was featured as herself in the award winning Telugu film, Swarna Kamalam (Golden Lotus) directed by K. Viswanath to inspire the heroine to value her own Indian dance heritage. * Mrinalini Sarabhai enrolled in Santiniketan for three years after schooling in Switzerland. "It is in Santiniketan that she became the aesthete of all things Indian under the tutelage of Rabindranath Tagore," Mallika Sarabhai, her daughter told The Print. Sarabhai's roommates were former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and Kamala Chaudhary, one of the founders of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. ('Doyenne of Indian classical dance - Mrinalini Sarabhai bloomed under the tutelage of Tagore' by Tina Das, The Print, May 11, 2023) * Dancer Chitra Visweswaran had once requested musician Lalgudi Jayaraman to compose a Pada Varna on Tirupathi Balaji. "Pada Varna contains more text and lyric to suit the dance format, and my father regularly visited the Balaji temple in Chennai and in five days, the Shanmukhapriya Varna was ready that Chitra soon danced for," recalls his daughter Vijayalakshmi. ('A lifelong serenade' by Ranjani Govind, Deccan Herald, Jan 24, 2021) * In June 1857, when Indian soldiers laid siege to Cawnpore (now Kanpur), enclosing British East India Company officials, they were accompanied by a courtesan. In the midst of the confrontation, as shots whizzed around, the courtesan was seen by at least one eyewitness armed with pistols...from archival reports emerges a picture of a woman who made a pivotal contribution to the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, at the forefront and behind the scenes, working as an informer, messenger and possibly even a conspirator in the Kanpur chapter of the rebellion. ('Tawaifs: The unsung heroes of India's freedom struggle' by Sowmya Rao, Scroll.in, May 14, 2019) * Jahandar Shah, who ruled from 1712-1713, made a dancing girl Lal Kunwar, the Empress of the Mughal empire. Her father was a descendent of Tansen and her family were professional musicians called kalawants. During her reign, she was granted an annual allowance of 2 crores odd rupees and coins were struck in her name. So enamoured was he that he often agreed to her fanciful ideas of venturing into city markets at night in a buffalo cart and buying whatever they pleased. ('The 'Tawaifs' of Shahjahanabad' by Debasish Das, Live History India, March 11, 2020) * The first visit of temple dancers to Europe was in 1838. They were brought over to France by an enterprising impresario - EC Tardival - from Pondicherry in south India. They stayed for over a year and performed in Paris, Vienna, Antwerp, Brussels, London and Brighton. ('12 things you didn't know about La Bayadère' by Shobana Jeyasingh) * Aurangzeb, commonly perceived as a man with strict, religious bent of mind, fell for a talented dancing girl called Hirabai who was titled Zainabad Mahal (the lady from Zainabad). Niccolao Manucci says Aurangazeb vowed to abstain from alcohol throughout his life after the death of Hirabai. It was said that Hirabai was killed on the orders of Roshanara Begum who was worried that her brother had lost his ways with the dancing girl and may not be a serious contender to the throne by defeating Dara. She was sitting on a swing in her gardens when the assassins knifed her to death. ('The 'Tawaifs' of Shahjahanabad' by Debasish Das, Live History India, March 11, 2020) * Though many artistes of the Isai Vellalar tradition came into films, the most well-known among them was M.S. Subbulakshmi, who featured in four films, the most famous being Meera (1945), directed by Ellis R. Dungan. ('Devadasi influence in Tamil cinema' by Theodore Baskaran, Frontline, Oct 11, 2019) * La Bayadère was first staged in 1877 by French choreographer Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg. The ballet was created especially for the benefit performance of Ekaterina Vazem, prima ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre. ('12 things you didn't know about La Bayadère' by Shobana Jeyasingh) * American ice skater Gracie Gold performed a version of La Bayadère in the 2018 Winter Olympics. La Bayadère was the last production Rudolf Nureyev worked on, performed at the Palais Garnier, Paris in 1992. ('12 things you didn't know about La Bayadère' by Shobana Jeyasingh) * Krishnanattam had its first tour abroad under the leadership of Guru G Venu. ('The myriad avatars of abhinaya' by GS Paul, India Art Review, 28 Nov 2021) * In 2004, one of the largest Shiva Nataraja bronzes cast by master craftsman Rajan, from Swamimalai in Tamilnadu, was gifted by the Indian government to the CERN Cosmic Lab in Geneva, involved in the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle. ('Decoding the Nataraja Bronzes: A Cosmic Dance through centuries' by Sharada Srinivasan, Live History India, March 7, 2021) |
