Rukmini Devi Arundale, founder of Kalakshetra |
The Founder
Rukmini Devi
Arundale, founder of Kalakshetra
Kalakshetra,
later known as the Kalakshetra Foundation was established by Smt. Rukmini Devi Arundale, along with her
husband, Dr. George Arundale, a known theosophist,
in Adyar, Chennai in 1936. She not only invited
the best of students, but also noted teachers, musicians and artists to be a
part of this institution.
Yearlong
celebrations, including lectures, seminars and festivals marked her 100th birth
anniversary, on February 29, in 2004 at Kalakshetra and elsewhere in many parts
of the world, also on February 29, a photo exhibition on her life opened
at the Lalit Kala Gallery in New Delhi, and on the same day, President A.P.J.
Abdul Kalam released a photo-biography, written and compiled by Dr. Sunil Kothari with
a foreword by former president R.
Venkataraman.
Having studied the Pandanallur style for three years, in 1936 Rukmini Devi Arundale started working on developing her own,
Kalakshetra, style of Bharatanatyam. She introduced group performances and
staged various Bharatanatyam-based ballets.
The
Kalakshetra style is noted for its angular, straight, ballet-like kinestetics,
and its avoidance of Recakas and
of the uninhibited throw (Ksepa) of the limbs.
According
to Shri Sankara Menon (1907–2007), who was her associate from Kalakshetra’s
beginnings, Rukmini Devi raised
Bharatanatyam to a puritan art
form, divorced from its recently controversial past by "removing
objectionable elements" (mostly, the Sringara, certain emotional elements
evocative of the erotic, such as hip, neck, lip and chest movements) from the Pandanallur style, which was publicly
criticized by Balasaraswati and other representatives of the
traditional Isai Vellalar culture. Not all love was portrayed, at least outside
parameters considered "chaste".
Balasaraswati said that "the effort to purify
Bharatanatyam through the introduction of novel ideas is like putting a gloss
on burnished gold or painting the lotus". E.Krishna Iyer said about
Rukmini Devi, “There is no need to say that before she entered the field, the
art was dead and gone or that it saw a renaissance only when she started to
dance or that she created anything new that was not there before”
Location
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Besant Nagar, Chennai, India,
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Coordinates
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12.9881°N
80.26500°E
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Information
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Established
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January 1936
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Founder
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Rukmini Devi Arundale
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Director
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Priyadarshini Govind
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Chairman
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N Gopalaswami
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