While chatting with an online friend about the history of devadasis and other topics related to this blog, my friend pointed out that the website of the Asia Society had a video containing a rare clip of devadasi Mylapore Gowri Ammal dancing. The video was Douglas Knight's presentation at the June 2010 Asia Society-hosted launch of his book, Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life. As I watched, I was completely astonished to discover that not only did it have an almost 3-minute video of Gauri Ammal's abhinaya (!) but also it contained two separate clips (with nearly 13-minutes of collective dance footage) of the legendary devadasi T. Balasaraswati.
Here is the stunning video with the dance segments notated above. The first two dances have no sound and Mr. Knight reads excerpts from his book in the background. (Here's the original video link if needed.)
12:02-16:00 - Balasaraswathi dancing on stage 18:13-20:54 - Mylapore Gowri Ammal 22:34-34:09 - Balasaraswathi performing an alapana starting at 23:25 and then dancing to Krishna Nee Begane Baro starting at 25:17 (according to Sangeetha's blog).
(2021 Update: I am no longer updating this blog but hope you enjoy my older posts!) Bringing light to classical and traditional Indian dances in the cinema of India; unearthing rare archival clips and academic research on South Asian dance!
