{{Short description|Indian Bharatnatyam dancer (1918–1984)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2019}} {{Use Indian English|date=January 2019}} {{Infobox musical artist | name = Tanjore Balasaraswati | image = Balasaraswati 2010 stamp of India.jpg | caption = Balasaraswati on a 2010 stamp | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1918|05|13}} | birth_place = Madras Presidency, British India | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1984|02|09|1918|05|13}} | death_place = Madras, India | origin = Tanjore | genre = Carnatic classical music | occupation = Bharatanatyam dancer }}
'''Tanjore Balasaraswati''',<ref name=pa/> also known as '''Balasaraswati''' (13 May 1918 – 9 February 1984), was an Indian dancer, and her rendering of Bharatanatyam, a classical dance style originated in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, made this style of dancing well known in different parts of India and many parts of the world. Belonging to the devadasi lineage, she preserved the traditional form of Bharatanatyam that embraced ''shringara'' (erotic depictions of divine love), viewing it as beautiful and spiritual rather than immoral, unlike upper-caste dancers such as Rukmini Devi Arundale, who sought to reform the dance by removing its erotic elements.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gorlinski |first=Virginia |title=T. Balasaraswati |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/T-Balasaraswati |url-status=live |website=Britannica}}</ref>
She was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1957<ref name="Padma Awards">{{cite web|url=http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/LST-PDAWD-2013.pdf |title=Padma Awards |publisher=Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India |date=2015 |access-date=21 July 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151015193758/http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/LST-PDAWD-2013.pdf |archive-date=15 October 2015 }}</ref> and the Padma Vibhushan in 1977, the third and the second highest civilian honours given by the Government of India.<ref name=pa>{{cite web|title=Padma Awards Directory (1954-2007) |publisher=Ministry of Home Affairs |date=2007-05-30 |url=http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/PadmaAwards1954-2007.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090410024701/http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/PadmaAwards1954-2007.pdf |archive-date=2009-04-10 }}</ref> In 1973, she was awarded the ''Sangeetha Kalanidhi'' by the ''Madras Music Academy''. In 1981 she was awarded the ''Sangeetha Kalasikhamani'' award of The Indian Fine Arts Society, Chennai.
==Early life and background== Balasaraswati was a seventh generation representative of a traditional matrilineal family of temple musicians and dancers (devadasis),<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/temple-dancer/920036/ |title=Temple Dancer |newspaper=Indian Express |date=2012-03-05 |access-date=2016-11-22}}</ref> 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. Her ancestor, Papammal, was a musician and dancer patronized in the mid-eighteenth century by the court of Thanjavur. Her grandmother, Veenai Dhanammal (1867–1938), is considered by many to be the most influential musician of the early twentieth century. Her mother, Jayammal (1890–1967) was a singer who encouraged the training of Balasaraswati and was her accompanist.{{citation needed|date=January 2019}}
Balasaraswati created a revolution in traditional music and dance for Bharatanatyam, a combination of the performance arts of music and dance. She learned music within the family from her infancy, and her rigorous training in dance was begun when she was four under the distinguished dance teacher K. Kandappan Pillai, a member of the famed Thanjavur Nattuvanar family. Her younger brothers were the musicians T. Ranganathan and T. Viswanathan who would both become prominent performers and teachers in India and the United States. Her daughter, Lakshmi Knight (1943–2001), became a distinguished performer of her mother's style. Her grandson Aniruddha Knight continues to perform the family style today, and is artistic director of Bala Music and Dance Association in the United States and the Balasaraswati School of Dance in India. Her son-in-law Douglas M. Knight Jr. has written her biography with the support of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2003). Famous Indian film maker Satyajit Ray made a documentary on her works.{{citation needed|date=January 2019}}
==Career== Balasaraswati's debut took place in 1925. She was the first performer of her traditional style outside of South India, performing first in Calcutta in 1934. As a young teenager, she was seen by choreographer Uday Shankar, who became an ardent promoter of her performances, and throughout the 1930s she captured the imagination of audiences across India. She went on to a global career that attracted international critical attention and the respect of dance greats such as Shambhu Maharaj, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham. Interest in Bharatanatyam rebounded in the 1950s as the public became interested in promoting a unique Indian art form. Balasaraswati, encouraged by an administrator at the Music Academy in Madras, established a dance school in association with the institution. There she trained new dancers in Bharatanatyam as per her vision. In the early 1960s she increasingly travelled globally, with performances in East Asia, Europe, and North America. Later that decade, throughout the 1970s, and into the early 1980s, she visited the United States repeatedly and held residencies—as both a teacher and a performer—at Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut), California Institute of the Arts (Valencia), Mills College (Oakland, California), the University of Washington (Seattle), and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (Beckett, Massachusetts), among other institutions. Through her international engagements as well as her activities in India, especially in Madras, Balasaraswati not only exposed countless audiences to the traditional style of Bharatanatyam but also trained many new practitioners of the art form.
An American student of hers, by the name of Luise Scripps, created the American Society for Eastern Arts, and from July 1965, for over a decade, outstanding musicians, dancers and other artists from India and Indonesia, in particular, had the chance of travelling to the United States to present their art.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Venkataraman |first=L |title=Indian Classical dance: The Renaissance and Beyond [English]. |publisher=Niyogi Books |year=2017}}</ref>
== Awards == She received numerous awards in India, including the President's Award from the Sangeet Natak Akademi (1955),{{citation needed|date=July 2021}} Padma Vibhushan from the Government of India for distinguished national service (1977){{citation needed|date=July 2021}} and Sangita Kalanidhi from the Madras Music Academy,{{citation needed|date=July 2021}} South India's highest award for musicians (1973). In a review in 1977, the New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff described her as one of the "supreme performing artists in the world".{{citation needed|date=July 2021}} India Today,{{when|date=July 2021}} based on a survey, classified her as one of the 100 prominent Indians who have shaped the destiny of India.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}} She was the only non-western dancer included in a compilation of the Dance Heritage Coalition, "America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures: The First 100" (2000).<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-00-099/library-of-congress-joins-other-institutions-and-the-dance-heritage-coalition-in-announcing-the-identification-of-americas-irreplaceable-dance-treasures-the-first-100/2000-07-28/ |title= Library of Congress Joins Other Institutions and The Dance Heritage Coalition in Announcing the Identification of "America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures: The First 100"|date=2000-07-28 |access-date=2021-10-10}}</ref>
== See also == * Bharatanatyam * Mani Madhava Chakyar
==In popular culture== Bengali film director Satyajit Ray made a documentary film on Balasaraswati named ''Bala'' (1976).<ref>{{cite web |author=S. K. Singh |url=http://www.satyajitray.org/films/bala.htm |title=Bala: A film by Satyajit Ray |website=SatyajitRay.org |access-date=2016-11-22 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120911121224/http://www.satyajitray.org/films/bala.htm |archive-date=11 September 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Other sources== *[https://www.thebetterindia.com/195407/tanjore-balasaraswati-bharatnatyam-greatest-dancer-woman-chennai-india/ "Tanjore Balasaraswati: Bharatnatyam’s Greatest Dancer"], ''The Better India''. *[https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/dance/tracing-balasaraswatis-journey/article22689812.ece "Tracing Balasaraswati’s journey"], ''The Hindu'', 25 January 2018. *Gupta, Indra. ''India's 50 Most Illustrious Women''. {{ISBN|81-88086-19-3}}. *Knight Jr., Douglas M. ''Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life''. Wesleyan University Press, June 2010. {{ISBN|978-0819569066}}. *[https://web.archive.org/web/20140726122452/http://cinemanrityagharana.blogspot.in/2012/03/found-bala-1976-satyajit-ray-and-extant.html ''Bala'' (1976)], a documentary by Satyajit Ray, available online via Wayback Machine. *Poursine, Kay. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1478754 "Hasta As Discourse on Music: T. Balasaraswati and her Art"], ''Dance Research Journal'', Vol. 23, No. 2, Autumn 1991, JSTOR. *Poursine, Kay. [http://www.kpoursine.com "Bala in the US"], ''Nartanam'', Vol. IX, No. 4.
==External links== *{{cite web |url=http://www.balasaraswati.com |title=1918-1984 |website=Balasaraswati.com |access-date=2016-11-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161104124053/http://www.balasaraswati.com/ |archive-date=4 November 2016 |url-status=usurped }} *{{cite web|url=http://www.kpoursine.com/my-inspiration |title=The Inspiration |website=Kpoursine.com |access-date=2016-11-22}} *{{cite web|url=http://centerforworldmusic.org/schools/three.html |title=World Music In the Schools |publisher=Center for World Music |access-date=2016-11-22}}
{{Padma Vibhushan Awards}} {{PadmaBhushanAwardRecipients 1954–59}} {{SangeetNatakAkademiFellowship}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balasaraswati}} Category:1918 births Category:1984 deaths Category:Bharatanatyam dancers Category:People from Thanjavur Category:Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in arts Category:Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts Category:Indian female classical dancers Category:Indian dance teachers Category:Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award Category:Teachers of Indian classical dance Category:Women educators from Tamil Nadu Category:Educators from Tamil Nadu Category:20th-century Indian dancers Category:Dancers from Tamil Nadu Category:20th-century Indian educators Category:20th-century Indian women artists Category:Women artists from Tamil Nadu Category:20th-century Indian women educators Category:Bharatanatyam Category:Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship Category:Indian courtesans