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She reinterpreted Bharatanatyam in modernist idiom

Vani Doraisamy

Chandralekha's style was characterised by restrained eroticism and stark settings

File photo

Renowned dancer Chandralekha

CHENNAI: Renowned dancer Chandralekha died a little before midnight on Saturday, after months of fighting cancer.

She was 78, and leaves a repertoire of performances that relentlessly reinterpreted the classical traditions of Bharatanatyam in the modernist idiom.

The dancer, whose style was characterised by restrained eroticism and stark settings, was born in the small town of Wada, Maharashtra in 1928.

She gave up law studies at Wilson College, Mumbai and came to Chennai in the 1950s to train with Bharatanatyam guru Kancheepuram Ellappa Pillai. An illustrious contemporary was Balasaraswathi.

What followed was an unparalleled career for a decade. Unhappy with the inflexibility of classical dance and the tendency to pander to commercialism, Chandralekha stopped performing and turned to designing posters and books and getting involved with feminist and human rights movements.

With her 1984 comeback at the East-West Dance Encounter, Mumbai, the stage was set for the birth of what came to be known as the `Chandralekha-style.'

From `Angika' in 1985 till `Sharira' in 2003, subsequent productions combined Bharatanatyam with kalaripayattu and yoga: `Lilavati' (1989; based on Bhaskaracharya's ancient mathematics text), `Prana' (1990; a blend of astrophysics, yoga and dance), `Sri' (1991, a treatise on the enslavement and empowerment of women), `Yantra' (1994, based on the body and its energy flow), `Mahakaal' (1995, based on the non-linearity of time) and `Raga' (1998, on the quest for the female inside the man).

The 1986 Festival of India in Moscow opened with Chandralekha's choreography, involving 800 dancers and 35 folk, tribal and classical forms.

In 1987 came `Namaskar' for the Moscow Festival of India. `Yantra' followed in 1994, which also marked her American premiere at the celebrated Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. In 1998, `Raga' was presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's `Next Wave Festival' in New York.

Chandralekha drew her legendary reputation as much from being one of the fiercely debated artists of modern India (for the celebration of the human body) as from having presented at some of the world's best showpiece venues.

Chandralekha's dance also benefited from her association with the Kalakshetra Foundation and with some of her celebrated contemporary musicians — Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, S. Ramanathan, T.V. Gopalakrishnan, G.S. Mani, Aruna Sairam and the Gundecha brothers.

A recipient of the Sangeet Natak Academy award, Chandralekha spent the last years working for `Spaces', an arts foundation she set up in Chennai.

Among those who paid their last respects were dancers Chitra Viswesvaran, Sudharani Raghupathy and V.P. Dhananjayan. The cremation took place on Sunday.

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