Chandralekha: Exemplary dancer, independent thinker

Chennai, Dec 31 (UNI) An extraordinary personality of the Indian art world, Chandralekha remained an independent thinker and an original artiste.

She was known for having put contemporary Indian dance on the world map.

It was with Angika (1985) that Chandralekha proclaimed the need for reintegrating the diverse Indian physical traditions and exploring new and contemporary directions for dance in India.

The work, which highlighted the essential unity of dance and other physical disciplines, postulated an abstract and non-sublimated content for dance.

Twenty years later today, after ten full-length productions, and several shorter works, scores of lecture-demonstrations, workshops and collaborations in India and abroad, Chandralekha's work has emerged as the yardstick by which new and contemporary Indian dance is being measured.

After Angika, Chandralekha's productions like Lilavati, Prana, Sri, Yantra, Mahakal, Raga, Sloka and Sharira are classic examples of how Indian dance can be modern on its own terms without aping the West.

Her work constituted a deep interrogation of the Bharatanatyam form in a proscenium space as well as its mechanically interpreted mythological content. The cumulative direction of her search has been to return to the basics of the body and its energies within changing Time/Space dynamics.

The Chennai-based dancer/choreographer who is also noted for her contributions as a creative writer and designer, trained in the early 1950s with the famed Bharatanatyam teacher and nattuvanar Guru Kancheepuram Ellappa Pillai. She achieved critical acclaim in the dance style known for its musicality and intensity of 'abhinaya' in a lineage that had also spawned that extraordinary artist, Balasaraswati.

During a glittering decade-long career, Chandralekha was among the leading soloists of her time and performed at some of the most coveted venues in India and abroad, besides being a select member of the first ever Indian artiste delegation to the USSR and China in the 1950s.

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