Tall, lean, fair, wearing a plain white shirt with sunglasses stylishly tucked in and a pair of grey trousers, it’s hard to place Aniruddha Knight as a Bharatanatyam dancer, more so as the ninth generation heir of a two-centuries-old family of artists or the grandson of the iconic T. Balasaraswati.
As he sits down with a glass of cold coffee at Amethyst to talk about lineage, upholding a cherished tradition and finding his feet, his clean-shaven face, under the bright rays of the summer sun, mirrors the pain of comparison, burden of expectation, and most times, the pride of inheritance.
“You could easily crumble under the weight of such a legacy. It’s a fight. None in this world is completely egoless. Those who say that they do think about themselves are merely fooling the world. Who doesn’t want to be feted like her (referring to his legendary grandmother)? But you do realise that in the shadow of that gigantic tree there is safety. Yet, as an artist, you want to stand your ground,” says Aniruddha, switching easily between impeccable English and Tamil.
“Hailing from such a tradition you have to make sacrifices. What I have undergone is nothing,” he continues. “My ancestors have struggled harder to uphold the art. I am in a happier position and I need to celebrate that.”
At the Balasaraswai Institute of Performing Arts in Chennai, he is trying to transform the art into a community activity. He has opened the doors of his house (where his grandmother lived) to children from disadvantaged background. “There are students coming from Red Hills and Kanchipuram. They leave home at 3 in the morning to make it to a 7 a.m. class. I grew up in a selfless environment where it was felt everyone deserved the same respect,” he says, getting up to pose for photographs. Though a performer, he seems uncomfortable in front of the camera, shifting stances constantly.
“Because friezes are not part of my dance style,” he laughs. The bani of Bharatanatyam that he practises has its roots in temples, where dance was an act of worship. His grandmother is credited with bringing the beauty of this stylistically unique form to the performance stage. Spontaneity and improvisation characterise it. “The emotions should appear natural, not rehearsed. That is where manodharma comes in. Today when style has gained a broader connotation, I strongly feel bani is still relevant. It gives you a foothold,” explains Aniruddha.
“We talk about innovation without knowing what to do with the old, which is as important as the contemporary. I often hear comments like, ‘Why do they keep doing the Mohamana varnam.’ But each time you perform, you can make it evolve with your maturity. In the West, you cannot trace a tradition over 100 years. So we need to create opportunities to preserve our rich past.”
Aniruddha’s mother Lakshmi, who passed away in 2001, was the only child of Balasaraswati and her mother’s vocal accompanist. She took to dancing realising her responsibility as the torchbearer of a legacy.
Her husband Douglas Knight, an American, became an intrinsic part of the artistic family by learning to play the mridangam for dance from Kanchipuram Kuppuswamy Mudaliar, who accompanied Balasaraswati all through her career, and later from the dancer’s brother T. Ranganathan.
“Though my mother moved to the U.S., performed and taught there, she never gave up her cultural identity. She never even took up American citizenship,” recalls Aniruddha crediting the influential U.S.-based Scripps family for their valuable support to his grandmother.
The annual Balasaraswati/Samuel H. Scripps Award for Artistic Excellence is a tribute both to the dancer and the patron of arts, especially the Eastern (he even started the American Society for Eastern Arts). Samuel’s wife Luise studied Bharatanatyam under Balasaraswati and established a school of music and dance in her mentor’s memory.
“My grandmother used to visit the school annually and Eva Soltes was among her prominent disciples. Though a purist, her art could communicate with the world. When it came to appreciation, she had an open mind.
She loved Martha Graham, Donald macayle and Margot Fonteyn. They were people who valued her art while she was in awe of what they did,” says Aniruddha, who plans to lend a global focus to the award function from next year to celebrate the universality of his grandmother Balasaraswati’s art.
