Celebrated exponent of Indian classical dance form Bharatanatyam Late Tanjore Balasaraswati. Bharatanatyam is a classical dance style which originated in the state of Tamil Nadu. Balasaraswati created an awareness about this dance form and spread this dancing style all over India and several parts of the world. Born in Chennai, on 13 May 1918 to Jayammal and Modarapu Govindarajulu, Balasaraswati was inducted early into the art of Carnatic music and dance.
T. Balasaraswati was a seventh generation representative of a traditional matrilineal family of temple musicians and dancers (devadasis who traditionally enjoyed high social status), who have been described as the greatest single repository of the traditional performing arts of music and dance of the southern region of India. She started training at the age of five under the renowned Nattuvanar Kandappa Pillai.
At age seven she completed her Arangetram (debut public performance) at a shrine to the goddess Devi in the city of Kanchipuram and stunned the audience with her rhythmically executed movements. As Balasaraswati matured, she became ever more adept at both Nritta (nonrepresentational movement) and Abhinaya (movement depicting specific emotions or moods). As a young teenager, she was seen by internationally known Indian dancer and choreographer Uday Shankar, who became an ardent promoter of her performances, and throughout the 1930s she captured the imagination of audiences across India. Balasaraswati created a revolution in traditional music and dance for Bharatanatyam, a combination of the performance arts of music and dance.
She performed the Bharatanatyam dance on Jana Gana Mana, even when it had not been made the national anthem; in presence of Tagore himself who wrote the poem. For her contributions to Indian arts and culture, Balasaraswati received a Sangeet Natak Akademi (India’s national academy of music, dance, and drama) award in 1955 and the Padma Vibhushan, one of the country’s top civilian honours, in 1977. Although she danced extensively throughout her life, she was seldom filmed. In 1976, however, the acclaimed Indian film director Satyajit Ray made a short documentary, Bala, as a tribute to her artistic achievement.
