| Author | Message | ||
Iamim Side Hero Username: Iamim Post Number: 4596 Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 117.195.179.134 Rating: N/A |
amma pettadu.. adukko nivvadu.. | ||
Yahoo Comedian Username: Yahoo Post Number: 1511 Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 78.100.108.121 Rating: N/A |
ba choice...sherlyn chopra will do justice to the role. | ||
Humpty_dumpty Moderator Username: Humpty_dumpty Post Number: 20199 Registered: 02-2009 Rating: N/A |
aa rojullo hitler bhaavajaalam fascinating gaa undi folow ayi undavachu but kurrod mentality nee embrace antay manalo kooda thopu thurrum mentality baanay undaali anamaata, even though we were already ruled by others for a thousand years as a collective region | ||
Politicalobserver Comedian Username: Politicalobserver Post Number: 1803 Registered: 11-2012 Posted From: 117.203.55.82 Rating: N/A |
They hijacked it destroyed an artform and made it very insular..They prevented the democratization of an artform | ||
Cinejeevi Side Hero Username: Cinejeevi Post Number: 2246 Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 69.147.191.50 Rating: N/A |
bottom line ettandi.. intaki B involvement valana bharatanatyam and carnatic music M gudispoyaaya?? leka aaripotunnaa ee rendu deepalni B batch nilabettara?? | ||
Politicalobserver Comedian Username: Politicalobserver Post Number: 1800 Registered: 11-2012 Posted From: 117.203.55.82 Rating: N/A |
Another excellent article /////////////////////// Just kidding Balasaraswati (left) and M.S. Subbulakshmi in a naughty 1937 studio pic Review Beatification Of The Erotic This magisterial biography of a great artiste is unsparing on the forces and injustices that shaped Bharatanatyam Sadanand Menon COMMENTS PRINT More Sharing Services Share on facebook Share on pinterest_share Share on twitter Share on email Text Size Search: Balasaraswati: Her Art & Life BALASARASWATI: HER ART & LIFE BY DOUGLAS M. KNIGHT JR. TRANQUEBAR | PAGES: 325 | RS. 599 Sometimes, all it takes is one spirited intervention to change a context. One event, one book, one photograph, one performance can become the tipping point for a paradigm shift. Personally, I consider 1985 as a turning point, when choreographer Chandralekha’s Angika was first performed at NCPA, Mumbai. Indian contemporary dance has never been the same again. Douglas Knight’s magisterial biography of his late mother-in-law Balasaraswati, one of India’s most accomplished artistes, is destined to contribute that same energy to future debates and studies on Bharatanatyam. After a long time, here is a book on classical Indian dance that throws to the winds the historic hypocrisy associated with Indian dance writing. Having little stakes in the local dance context, yet having deep access to Balasaraswati’s inner circle and to the family archives, Knight has been almost unselfconsciously candid. He has succeeded in communicating the anxiety, anguish and anger experienced by this family of ‘traditional’ artists of the Devadasi community who were being systematically denied and erased from the newly emerging nation-state. At one level, it is a sort of flawed book, focusing obsessively on one family to the exclusion of a larger social process. The last fifty pages are appendices and notes. The main narrative has seven chapters, of which the last three are jumpy and inconsistent. There is a curious endorsement here, in one instance, of the caste system, with a currently fashionable ‘Hindutva’ position that “the notion of hierarchical distinctions arose only when outside (sic) forces began politicising religionâ€. But the first four chapters are of a quality not witnessed before in scholarship around Indian dancers. Knight’s intensity is unrelenting; his critique of the cant, casuistry and cussedness that accompanied the systematic marginalisation of the Devadasis, the hereditary ‘owners’ of dance and musical forms, and the simultaneous ascendancy of the new, urban elite, Brahmin appropriators of the form, is unsparing. The demise of Dasiattam or Sadir dance during the 1920s and ’30s and the vocal repudiation of its aesthetic was overlaid on to the discourse on the ‘morality’ of its performers, a slur that went hand-in-hand with new (mostly conservative) ideas about the role of women in the emerging nation. From the turn of the 20th century till roughly the time of independence, the Devadasis were targets of attack, even as they were disenfranchised from their artistic wealth and livelihood through stigmatisation and parliamentary legislation. It is ironic that the Devadasi Abolition Bill became an Act in 1947. As Knight writes: “By the end of 1947, the defamation of the Devadasi had been legislated and it appeared that both the art and the artist had been banished and replaced.†Within this process, one major mise-en-scene belongs to the role played by upper-class, upper-caste ‘reformists’ like E. Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi Arundale. Dance historians have generally tended to •••••-foot around the nature of their interventions and what it meant in a larger context. After Kapila Vatsyayan’s early works, it is only in the 1990s that some sort of a feature to dance scholarship emerged. But once again that period of ‘reinvention’ of Bharatanatyam in the 1930s-40s has come under more rigorous scrutiny by dance scholars, mostly from universities abroad. The infamous stand-off between Rukmini Devi and Balasaraswati on ‘appropriate’ dance content and gesture for a ‘modern’ audience has till now been cleverly sublimated by conservative commentators into an academic argument between ‘bhakti’ and ‘shringara’. It is left to Doug Knight to expose the latent hostility between the two artists as it emerged to the fore in 1945, at the All India Dance Festival in Bombay. Such honesty has been lacking in dance writing before and is sure to have a positive effect on contemporary discourse. The real ‘masala’ of the book is a studio photograph some of us have seen in private before, but now made public, of Balamma and fellow Devadasi artist, the legendary singer M.S. Subbulakshmi, both in their teens, dressed in pajama suits, posing with cigarettes. It’s a peach and captures perfectly the insouciance of the book. ///////////////////// http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279255 | ||
Politicalobserver Comedian Username: Politicalobserver Post Number: 1798 Registered: 11-2012 Posted From: 117.203.55.82 Rating: N/A |
Inka cruel emiti antey her father never accepted her as his daughter initially.Because her mother was born to a Issai Vellalar caste.She was the product of the cruel Devadasi sytem.Which made holy temples as brothels Malli Der_schuler vacchi Indian History meeda classlu.Comedy of Kathmandu ani | ||
Politicalobserver Comedian Username: Politicalobserver Post Number: 1797 Registered: 11-2012 Posted From: 117.203.55.82 Rating: N/A |
//////////////////////////////////// G.Shivaperumal music/dance Cauvery In A Puddle The total hijack of the South's rich classical arts into airless, Brahmins-only monopolies is stifling genuine growth S. Anand COMMENTS PRINT More Sharing Services Share on facebook Share on pinterest_share Share on twitter Share on email Text Size Also In This Story If you want to OD on high art, even to the point of nausea, Chennai might seem the place to be in December and early January. Some 2,000 concerts, via 53 competing sabhas, all squeezed into four weeks. On the surface, Chennai's fabled appetite for Carnatic and Bharatanatyam—given full body during its annual 'margazhi' (winter) festival—shows no signs of waning. The more the merrier. Stuff it all up in one go and digest it through the year. Washed ashore in this high tide of music and dance, however, are also signs of death. For all its conservatism, Carnatic has been quick to adapt to modern props: CD and electronic tamburas, remote-controlled drones, lessons on the CD-ROM. Not from a sudden wreckage, but the slow sinking of a grand liner following the wrong compass, into turbid cultural waters. Signs of suffocating, of closure, of gross inbreeding and loss of vigour, and the dubious life support offered by the marketplace. Some symptoms are stark. For so many concerts per square inch, the audience is spread really thin. Fact is, in a city that boasts 6,000-plus Bharatanatyam dancers past their arangetram (debut) stage, and where every other locality has a maami offering classes in dance and music, the estimated concert audience today is 15,000. But never mind if the auditorium is empty. As long as the sponsor's banner is displayed well, the show will go on. And since cheaper tickets won't bring in the crowds anyway, at Krishna Gana Sabha you pay Rs 200 to sit in the 21st row. Want to watch a dance from the third row? That'll be Rs 500. Even 15,000 is a liberal guesstimate, says Pattabhi Raman, editor of Sruti, a Chennai journal devoted to dance and music. "And this audience is 99 per cent Brahmin," he admits cheerlessly. Tamil Brahmin to be precise, including its NRI contingent (see box). It's a gentility that revels equally in the rustle of Kanjeevaram silk, the jangle of Nityashree Mahadevan's bangles as she keeps the beat, the aroma of filter kaapi... For the remaining 1 per cent, non-Brahmins share the space with the oddballs and dilettantes—white connoisseurs, the odd Sardarji or a Japanese musicologist. Sadly, this racial/ethnic profile—mirrored in all its lopsidedness by the body of established performers—does little justice to the specific history of these arts. For, historically they were no Brahmin monopolies. Quite the opposite. Bharatanatyam's progenitor was Sadir, performed by the Devadasis till the '20s when the 'reformist' anti-nautch campaign—culminating in the Devadasi Act of 1947—ensured it was equated with 'prostitution'. In this climate of opinion—reigned over by a Victorian Raj and a prudish Congress-nationalism—Sadir was usurped and reinscribed as a 'respectable' art form. Overseeing this infusion of shuddhi was the Brahmin gaze of figures like Rukmini Devi Arundale. Under the banyan shadow of the Theosophical Society, Sadir was de-eroticised, bowdlerised and spiritualised on the sprawling grounds of Rukmini Devi's Kalakshetra. The fallen Devadasi art was reimagined as a national dance (literally, bharata-natyam). Says Sadanand Menon, critic, "The Brahmins did not—and do not—have the bodies for this dance. Watching them perform, you wonder what happened to the spine!" Raghunath Manet, a stray non-Brahmin exponent, cites an ironic consequence of this balking from sheer physicality: "Sabhas prefer female dancers, unless you dance with a companion. For them all male dancers are the same. They say, 'We've already given a slot to one male dancer...' Women get on with makeup, jewels, beautiful dresses. A man has only his body to show." Thus was a cultural practice disembodied from its context—the temples and courts of Thanjavur, Thiruvarur, Pandanallur—and yoked to the bodies of women who, in the legendary T. Balasaraswati's words, were fit "only to cook and serve their husbands in the kitchen". The body language too changed.Aspects of sringara that ruffled Brahmin aesthetics were jettisoned for bhakti. Old items on the repertoire (Kshetrayya's erotic padams, flirtatious javalis) and modes of physical expression were sanitised. Markers like fair skin became the norm. Early Brahmin performers like Rukmini Devi did break caste taboos in taking to dance, but the long-term gains for a community under siege from the Dravidian movement were immense. "It gave a new face to them. Marketed as an icon of nationalism, the dance form acquired an ambassadorial stamp," argues Menon. "Every other middle-class Brahmin girl was schooled in Bharatanatyam. Like a community finding its identity by going to typing class." Non-Brahmins like Balasaraswati and Mylapore Gowri Ammal did get patronage from the 1927-born Madras Music Academy and held their own till the '50s, yet it was the brahminical thrust of Rukmini Devi that defined the future. The teachers (nattuvanars) have hailed from traditional performing communities like the Devadasis and Isai-Vellalars—but they're dying and remain rooted in non-metro centres like Thiruvarur, Thanjavur or Pandanallur. A survey today would yield a meagre non-Brahmin crop among practitioners, Alarmel Valli and Urmila Satyanarayan being notable. Bharatanatyam is now truly bhadralok. The social appropriation too is total. Recalls Manet, "My parents did not want my sisters to dance after their 14th year. Among Isai-Vellalars today, dance dims marriage prospects. But among Brahmins, it's an advantage—in fact, part of the dowry." Raman acknowledges the general view of Carnatic and Bharatanatyam as 'Brahmin pastimes'. Vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyam sees nothing wrong with the association. "But for Brahmins, where would Bharatanatyam be?" he asks. The fact of it, thus, rationalises itself. Music offers a broad parallel. From the '30s to the '60s, elite non-Brahmin castes held sway. Violin meant Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu, Kumabakonam Rajamanickam Pillai, Mysore Chowdiah. Pazhani Subramania Pillai was the most sought-after mridangist of his time. T. Muktha and T. Brinda, of the Dhanammal paramparai, and M.S. Subbulakshmi (for whom recognition came after her baptism into brahminism) set the trend—in the '60s and '70s—for other Brahmin women. Today, non-Brahmin Carnatic musicians are scarce. A whole community that called itself Isai-Vellalars—cultivators of music—has been "disenfranchised", laments Canada-based musician-researcher Devesh Soneji. Sponsors or caterers may crib about a greying, dwindling audience, but rasikas and performers don't really want classical art to expand its social base. "Nobody is stopping others from learning," counter Raman and Subrahmanyam. True. But recognition for 'others' is hard to come by. Music colleges were established post-'30s, yet only those who learnt the "traditional" way—through apprenticeship at gurus' homes—thrived. P. Unnikrishnan, a top vocalist who also sings for cinema, makes light of his non-brahminness—"they might've mistaken me for one of them" (plus, he's had Brahmin gurus)—but feels the pressure to prove a point when performing before purists. Figures like K.J. Yesudas too go against the drift. If today he can sing a kriti on Christ, as he did at Narada Gana Sabha for X'mas, he's had to struggle to claim that space. Says filmmaker Rajiv Menon, "In Hindustani, a Hariprasad Chaurasia, son of a pehalwan, could rise to the top. This possibility seems foreclosed in Carnatic." Few non-Hindus have made it in Carnatic, except in nadaswaram (like Chinna Moulana), anyway a non-Brahmin preserve. Over time, this majestic wind instrument has been blown away from kutcheri stages, save as inaugural mangala isai (auspicious music). For all its conservatism, Carnatic has been quick to adapt to modern props.Concert music—a three-hour box-set of 15 items—which evolved in the Madras of the '30s is at many removes from 19th century performances. Today, most performers use electronic and CD tamburas, even remote controls for the drone. At the Academy, a stall peddling a two-pack CD-ROM (Rs 1,250) that promised to teach all one wanted to know about Carnatic at the click of a mouse—no guru—sold 10 pieces a day. Most musicians have parallel careers as chartered accountants or bankers and zip past in Santros and Cielos, and undertake lucrative foreign tours. Only one strand has stayed: the exclusive-Brahmin-club feeling. "Finding one's identity in this island of classicism was understandable in the context of the Dravidian movement, but today these arts are being used to gleefully project a community internationally," says Menon. Most gurus brook no talk on the genre's caste-specificity. "Only if Brahmins sing will it sound good"—is the refrain. This conservative bent finds echoes in etymology. The anglicised Carnatic comes from Karnatakam —'traditional'. Some 250 years ago, in the twilight of the Bhakti era, the genre's grammar and aesthetic were set by a community that controlled 'refined' languages like Telugu and Sanskrit. Thyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri, 18th-19th century figures born on the banks of the Cauvery at Thiruvayyaru, gave modern Carnatic its repertoire of some 1,200 songs. Today, the trinity is deified; their compositions, museumised. Unlike Dikshitar and Sastri's eulogies, Thyagaraja's works are poetically rich but, content-wise, form the dregs of the Bhakti spirit. Says Sadanand Menon, "Bhakti was about humanism. The trinity was a backlash against its egalitarian core; it laid the ground for brahminical resurgence." Most gurus mock at Hindustani as a product of "Islamic courtly influence". Only the music sung on the banks of Cauvery, with assumed roots in the Samaveda, has claims on chastity. Even when it travels to Kentucky, innovation is anathema. The odd attempt runs into the chides of SVK, The Hindu's veteran critic: "Stick to the time-tested kirtanas of Thyagaraja, Dikshitar and Sastri". So stray creative impulses—Balamuralikrishna, Papanasam Sivan—merely mimic the trinity in form and content. Contemporaneity is something Bharatanatyam has at least grappled with through a Chandralekha, but Carnatic revels in anachronism. Among the new crop, Unni, Nityashree and Bombay Jayashree make the crossover from film to classical, and ensure crowds at concerts—and then flinch from novelty. Which is why Carnatic, in its provincial bliss, has never captured national—forget global—imagination. Even in Bombay or Calcutta, it's ghettoed in migrant Tamil Brahmin pockets. This also affects its economy. "An Amjad Ali Khan commands up to Rs 50,000 for performances in Chennai, but top South musicians can be had dirt-cheap in their bastion. Semmangudi was paid Rs 2,000 by the Academy," regrets Raman. What can stop the rut—the same singers, the same pieces, the same audience? Perhaps only a realisation that monopoly runs counter to the grain of art. For now, they're caught in a dark warp, waiting for light. ///////////////////////////////// http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?214299} | ||
Ringo_rangaswamy Side Hero Username: Ringo_rangaswamy Post Number: 3061 Registered: 02-2011 Posted From: 162.134.72.6 Rating: N/A |
SOMEBODY PLEASE ASK HER TO SHUT THE FAAAK UP. PIECE OF SHEET. | ||
Cinejeevi Side Hero Username: Cinejeevi Post Number: 2241 Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 69.147.191.50 Rating: N/A |
r u sure that she is a B by birth?? | ||
Bushu Side Hero Username: Bushu Post Number: 6189 Registered: 04-2009 Posted From: 24.61.12.115 Rating: N/A |
as a brahmin nazi, she wanted to sing in the court of Hitler. but hitler said, what eej this nonsense. and he complained to gandhi who asked subbu madam to learn opera style. and she delivered oppam gangnam style. supremely happy hitler told her all brahmins are his brothafromanothamotha ss ... and she gave him the gift of swastika. but then hitler died and as a nazi friend, she faced lot of problems. vomericans hunted her down but the right wing knicker walas protected her. that was when RSS gained power in south indian nazi brahmins. the 1965 war was the american efforts to get her. hence lata sang ae mere watan, it was subbu who was supposed to, earlier. adhi story. kadupu tear legs fall annatlu. balupu s/o gelupu | ||
Rajusk Megastar Username: Rajusk Post Number: 26314 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 208.54.87.140 Rating: N/A |
details.....please | ||
Politicalobserver Comedian Username: Politicalobserver Post Number: 1795 Registered: 11-2012 Posted From: 117.203.55.82 Rating: N/A |
M S Subbalaxmi garini fate chala cruel ga adukundhi | ||
Cinejeevi Side Hero Username: Cinejeevi Post Number: 2235 Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 69.147.191.50 Rating: N/A |
ante mari subbulakshmi gaaru ayanaki rendo aavida kadaa. aa angle lo emanna manchi sexy duets ki scope undemo ani naalo raghavendruDu adagamantunnadu | ||
Rajusk Megastar Username: Rajusk Post Number: 26313 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 208.54.87.140 Rating: N/A |
she is trained in Carnatic classical music anta..better fit than most others for sure.. | ||
Nanigadu Hero Username: Nanigadu Post Number: 10078 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 99.254.150.227 Rating: N/A |
role ki mathram apt choice anukunta, cinema etlunna patalu mathram iraga vuntayi  My show on TORI Raagala Pallaki - every Friday - EST 8 to 9 PM USA - 703-879-6611 UK - 4412 2377 0661 India - 040 66624513 Skype - tori.live1 Live Link: http://www.teluguoneradio.com/player/tori-live.html | ||
Rajusk Megastar Username: Rajusk Post Number: 26303 Registered: 02-2008 Posted From: 68.199.23.185 Rating: N/A |
The Subbulakshmi saga, which spans 88 years, would be told by admaker-cinematographer-filmmaker Rajiv Menon who has earlier directed Tamil feature films 'Minsara Kanavu' ('Sapney' in Hindi) with Kajol and Prabhudheva, and 'Kandukondain Kandukondain' with Tabu and Aishwarya Rai playing sister |