Indian classical dance form Bharatanatyam artist Padma Subrahmanyam. She is well known as the developer and founder of the dance form Bharata Nrithyam. She started teaching dance at a very young age of 14 at her father’s dance school. While teaching, she herself had innumerable queries for which she wanted answers. So she started studying, eventually going into research. She found there was a gap between history, theory and actual dance practice. Padma Subrahmanyam holds a bachelor’s degree in Music, a Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology, as well as a PhD in Dance under the guidance of Kuthur Ramakrishnan Srinivasan, noted archaeologist and a Padma Bhushan recipient.
Her PhD was based on the 81 Karanas depicting Bharatanatyam movements. She has authored many articles, research papers and books and has served as a non-official member of the Indo-Sub-commission for education and culture. She has designed the sculptures of the 108 sculptures of Lord Nataraja and goddess Parvathi in black granite for the Nataraja temple at Satara, an undertaking she took on bidding by the Kanchi Paramacharya. She has given lectures at various universities in southeast Asia, on the subject of cultural links between India and other countries.
