Kishori Amonkar, one of India's extra-ordinary classical singers comes from a Devadasi lineage.
Saride Manikyamma, a devadasi who was initiated as a child dancer into the 2 temples of Madana Gopalaswamy and Rukmini in Ballapadu at the age of 11, was unceremoniously left in the lurch by the Devadasi Act of 1947. She struggled for 25 years in poverty till she was discovered along with others, by Nataraj Ramakrishna at a convention in 1972 and brought to his institute to teach abhinaya.
When the Madras Devadasi Act took effect, 35,000 temples of Tamilnadu barred all women performers whether they were devadasis or not.
Manjusri Chaki - Sircar was born in August 1934 into a Bengali family in Pabna in Bangladesh. After the partition, she and her family moved to Calcutta in 1947.
On the temple walls of Bhubaneshwar, Puri and Konark, one can find dance sculptures of
Odissi style.
The well known German film director Jorn Thiel has made an hour long documentary on Shovana Narayan called 'Das Geheimnis des Kathak” for Austrian television. Robert Gottlieb of the USA has also made a film on the danseuse.
Sanskrit Theater, which flourished from the 2nd to the 9th centuries, lasted several hundred years longer than Greek theater and for 1000 years was virtually the only written drama in the world.
Jayanthi Ramachandra from Coimbatore presented the first recital of the first Perur Natyanjali Festival.
Following the 'Abhinaya Sadas' (conference of abhinaya experts) in 1970, a committee set up by the Andhra Pradesh State Sangeet Natak Akademi had prepared a syllabus for Andhra Natyam.
In 1977, Mallika Sarabhai was the youngest and first Asian dancer to receive the Golden Star award as the best soloist among 400 dancers from 22 dance companies from all over the world.
Did 'U' Know - Monthwise listing