Rangam, one of the holdouts from my "holy grail" wish list, has finally been uploaded to YouTube! (Update: New source relinked in 2019). Thanks to cram for informing me of this lucky discovery! As I had hoped, classical dance (Kathakali and Bharatanatyam) serves as the backdrop to Rangam's plot, and no more than 15 minutes go by before dance is seen again either in the background or as a centerpiece. Most exciting of all, there are lots of my beloved dance practice sequences scattered throughout the film!
Rangam is part of the rash of classical arts films that swept South India in the late 70s to 90s starting largely with the success of Sankarabharanam (Telugu, 1979). Rangam seems to be one of the earliest Malayalam films to follow the trend, and it was followed by other similar classical dance/arts films in Malayalam like Swathi Thirunal (1987), Kamaladalam (1992), Swathi Kiranam (1992), Rajasilpi (1992), Devasuram (1993), Manichitrathazhu (1993), Parinayam (1994), and Kaliyattam (1997).
Now on to the dances! I made a comment on the video at YouTube that lists all the dances in the film by category, so if you go there you can click on any timestamp of interest and it will whisk you away to that timestamp on the player. Here are my favorite dances from the film...
Bharatanatyam/Mohiniattam Dances
