How the Chennai Dance Season came into being

How dance has gained multidimensional presence over the years?

During the Season, halls big and small, reverberate to the sounds of anklebells, sollukattus, cymbals, mridangam strokes and music. The visual poetry of the lovelorn nayika, songs describing the celestial dance of Nataraja or the delectable Krishna, the jeevatma yearning for union with the paramatma, the rising crescendo of the tillana and the rounds of applause fill the space.

Classical dance – Natyam, is an integral part of Chennai’s Margazhi Season, the scope of which has expanded from November to January, thereby providing more performance opportunities mainly to youngsters. Bharatanatyam holds centre stage though the other classical styles do find a place.

When did it all begin? The genesis of the dance season lies in the genesis of the Madras music season. The annual All India Congress Session in 1927 gave an impetus to the establishment of the Music Academy in 1928. It was the practice to hold a music conference in conjunction with the Congress sessions in North India, and when Madras was chosen as the venue for 1927, Congress stalwart S. Satyamurti decided that a music conference must be organised. The first Conference was held in March 1929 for three days but dance was not a part of it. From 1930 the Academy began the tradition of conducting a week-long music festival in the last week of December to coincide with the Christmas week holidays. Thus began the ‘December Season’.

It is interesting that dance first made its entry into the season not as a performance but via discussions in the conference sessions. The ‘nautch question’ as it was known, was a burning topic in the early 1930s and there were heated discussions in the Academy conferences on the need to preserve the beautiful art of Sadir. The Music Academy then took a bold step. It announced its season with a Bharatanatyam performance by the Kalyani Daughters (Rajalakshmi and Jeevaratnam) of Tanjore on March 15, 1931; their mother was the celebrated dancer Tiruvalaputtur Kalyani. The performance drew only a small crowd and a meager gate collection, but it was a significant event and was reported in the Music Academy journal. The Academy continued to encourage the art of dance under the name of ‘Bharatanatyam’. On January 3, 1932, it invited Srimati Gowri (Mylapore) to dance with Balaraman of the Nadamuni Band providing musical accompaniment.

The decisive discussion on the future of the dance was held on December 28, 1932 — the sixth day of the conference. It was held in a special spacious circular pandal erected to the north of the Ripon Buildings in the Peoples Park. A big dais with aesthetic stage décor was made for the artistes who were to give model performances every evening. At the end of the discussion, the Academy passed major resolutions which had important repercussions. The conference appealed to the public and art associations to give Bharatanatyam the necessary encouragement. It requested the Academy to take steps towards proper appreciation of the art and to encourage public performances. It was suggested that women’s organisations could initiate proper training by instituting a course of instruction in the art.

Nandini Ramani, senior Bharatanatyam exponent now in her early seventies explains the Academy’s in the marumalarchi or renaissance of Bharatanatyam. She has fond memories of the dance season at the Academy which she has observed closely for decades. She recalls that those days one could watch well defined banis during the Season: the famous Kamala with her sisters Rhadha and Vasanthi under the baton of Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai; Vyjayantimala with her guru Kittappa Pillai wielding the cymbals and singing; and Nandini’s own guru T. Balasaraswati presenting the rigorous style of Kandappa Nattuvanar. Their performances would be landmark events on specific dates of the Season . Kamala and Vyjayantimala would draw house-full audiences. It was a grand and awe-inspiring experience to watch the nattuvanars and listen to them recite the jatis.

Octogenarian Rhadha recalls the excitement of dancing with Kamala during the Seasons of yore. There would be performances every day – so Kamala and vadyar Ramiah Pillai would chose the varnams for each venue and then the other items of the repertoire. They would practice with musicians S.K. Rajaratnam and K.R. Radhakrishnan every morning, everyone would be memorising and going over the the new pieces. The Seasons then were very different from now. The number of lecdems have increased and so has the sharing of the intellectual quotient which Rhadha feels is good.