Filmmaker V. Shantaram, wanting to make a film along the lines of Uday Shankar's ‘Kalpana’ (1948), needed a Kathak dancer who could dance in the pure form as opposed to the film dance that was popularly used. Actress Sandhya rose to the challenge and began training with actor-dancer-choreographer Gopi Krishna in the pure Kathak form. Sandhya would practise for up to 18 hours a day just to get her moves right. While shooting for the film, Sandhya did the performance in one take though the sequence is not shot in one take, astounding everyone on the sets. According to Balani, “V Shantaram was stunned with her performance and said he didn’t miss Vyjayanthimala.” The filmmaker apparently first approached Vyjayanthimala for ‘Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje’ (1955), but the actress, a rising star at the time, refused the low budget project.
(‘Dedicated to her art: The journey of Sandhya Shantaram’ by Sukhpreet Kahlon, Cinestaan.com, Feb 26, 2018) 


E. Krishna Iyer, the secretary of the Music Academy (Chennai), took steps to showcase what South Indian classical dance really stood for. The first program took place on March 15, 1931, featuring Rajalakshmi and Jeevaratnam, the daughters of Tiruvalaputtur Kalyani and therefore billed as Kalyani Daughters. This performance was at Gana Mandir, Thambu Chetty Street, a portion of what is now known as Rama Rau Buildings and named after Dr. U. Rama Rau, founder president of the Music Academy. The attendance was small, largely because people feared witnessing dance. By January 3, 1932, when Mylapore Gowri was presented as part of the December Music Festival at a pandal behind Ripon Buildings, the crowd was more. It increased further on January 1, 1933, when the Kalyani Daughters performed again and on August 26 the same year when Balasaraswathi was featured. By the time Varalakshmi and her sister Saranayaki danced on December 28, 1933, once again behind the Ripon Buildings, the crowd was huge. Billed as the granddaughters of Kumbakonam Gowri, they were part of a larger troupe of cousins, the others being Bhanumati, Sulochana and Pattu.
(‘The birth of Bharatanatyam’ by V Sriram, The Hindu, Dec 15, 2016)



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