When I hear the sounds of anklets approaching as I wait inside Sri Saraswathi Kalalaya, a classical dance school, I expect to see a woman, but to my surprise A. Arun Prakash appears.
He is a dancer, he says, and performs in many stage shows and inter-collegiate and national-level competitions. He has won many accolades for his performances. Sweat trickling down his forehead, Arun who trains in the Pandanallur style of dance, talks of his nine years in classical dance, with the bright eyes and bhavanai of a professional classical dancer. He started learning dance under his guru Natyamani. S. Murali.
Was he conscious of the fact that dance is usually seen as something girls pursue? The 22-year-old laughs. Art is for human beings and it has no gender bias, he says. “Dance to me is not just an art but also a physical, mental and divine exercise”. Arun has a post-graduate degree in Commerce, but dance is his passion.
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For 44-year-old S. Jayakumar, classical dance became a profession, after he obtained a diploma in Mechanical Engineering! He narrates the fierce objection he had to face from his family. They felt he wouldn’t make enough money from dance, and worried that no woman would marry a male classical dancer. Jayakumar disproved all that and today he runs a dance academy with 80 students and is happily married to J. Kanjanadevi. His two sons are also interested in dance. Kanjanadevi laughs and confesses that she was shocked when she first saw him wear anklets, an angavasthram and jewellery to work!
“Today I feel proud that I am his wife and that I can support such a beautiful art.” One of Jayakumar’s students is Sankar Bharan Kumar who studied aeronautical engineering before taking up dance seven years ago and is fiercely proud of his Yuva Kala Bharathi Award by Bharathi Yuva Kendra, Madurai. He says, “Many men today think dancing western styles is more fashionable. That has led them to think that classical dance is meant for women.”
The male dancers point out that the Rudra Thandavam of Lord Nataraja holds the origins of classical dance. Many dancers, both men and women, look forward to performing in front of the male God. Then why is it something that is regarded as a ‘woman thing,’ they ask. Tradition is not something that only a woman carries forward.
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