1. Malavika Sarukkai is an Indian classical dancer and choreographer specializing in Bharatanatyam. A 2002 winner of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, she was honoured by the Government of India in 2003 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award. 2. Born on 28 November 1980 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Shrimati Jyotsna Jagannathan received her initial training in dance from Shrimati Jayanti Subramanian and pursued advanced training under Shri A. Lakshmanaswamy.
08/07/2019 : Malavika Sarukkai
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. Profile :
Sarukkai in 1995
Born 1959
Tamil Nadu, India
Occupation Classical dancer
Known for Bharatanatyam
Awards Padma Shri
Website web site
Malavika meeting United States First Lady Hillary Clinton in 1995
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2. Introduction :
Malavika Sarukkai is an Indian classical dancer and choreographer specializing in Bharatanatyam. A 2002 winner of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, she was honoured by the Government of India in 2003 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.
3. Biography :
Malavika Sarukkai was born in 1959 in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. She began learning Bharatanatyam at the age of 7 and trained under Kalyanasundaram Pillai(Tanjavur school) and Rajaratnam (Vazhuvoor School). She also learned abhinaya under Kalanidhi Narayanan and Odissi under renowned gurus, Kelucharan Mohapatra and Ramani Ranjan Jena.
*She made her debut at the age of 12 at Mumbai and has performed at many places in India and abroad, including the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and at Chicago.
Her life and work have been recorded by way of a documentary, Samarpanam, commissioned by the Government of India. She also features in a nine-hour television documentary by BBC/WNET under the title, Dancing. The Unseen Sequence – Exploring Bharatanatyam Through the Art of Malavika Sarukkai is another documentary made on her art which has been screened at the National Centre for the Performing Arts. Mumbai.
4. Awards and recognitions :
Sarukkai was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award by the Government of India in 2002. She is also a recipient of Kalaimamani title from the Government of Tamil Nadu and other awards such as Mrinalini Sarabhai Award, Nrityachoodamani title, Sanskriti award and the Haridas Sammelan award. The Government of India honoured her again, in 2003, with the civilian award of Padma Shri.
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08/07/2019 : Shrimati Jyotsna Jagannathan
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Born on 28 November 1980 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Shrimati Jyotsna Jagannathan received her initial training in dance from Shrimati Jayanti Subramanian and pursued advanced training under Shri A. Lakshmanaswamy.
Presently, she is learning under the able guidance of the eminent guru, Shrimati Malavika Sarukkai. Shrimati Jyotsna Jagannathan has performed in acclaimed dance festivals across the globe.
She received the prestigious Sanskriti Fellowship in 2015. In recognition of her talent, the title of Nadanamamani has been conferred upon her by Kartik Fine Arts.
Shrimati Jyotsna Jagannathan is awarded the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar of Sangeet Natak Akademi for the year 2016 for her notable talent in the field of Bharatanatyam dance.
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08/07/2019
Under a creative umbrella : Mentorship : Malavika Sarukkai and Jyotsna Jagannathan share the evolving student-teacher dynamics.
In an apparently fast evolving phase of classical dance, the growth from a dancer into an accepted artiste seems slow, in comparison to the transition from teachers to gurus. From the conversation with Prof. Chandrasekhar and one of his mentees, Praveen Kumar, which formed the first of a three-part series on mentorship, we move to another perspective on the topic, from senior dancer-choreographer Malavika Sarukkai and Jyotsna Jagannathan, training under her.
Bharatanatyam dancer Jyotsna Jagannathan :
A performing spell nearing 50 years, a niche carved among her contemporaries, awards, collaborations, curation, what more would it take to play a mentor to mature dancers? “Willingness and a sense of responsibility to guide,” says Malavika Sarukkai.
“It is interesting that dancers have no reference, like a tanpura for musicians, to alert them about their quality,” observes Malavika. “It is important then to find the internal tanpura, to develop ourselves. Mentoring can be an influence to keep alive the search and the desire to delve deep into the art form, in a fragmented, chaotic world,” she adds.
Not clones : Malavika
Malavika explains that mentoring is not about creating clones or about numbers without quality, it is about a more rounded approach to help achieve excellence.
On her approach as a mentor, she says, “It starts with a debriefing after every performance in terms of grammar, technique, and behind-the scene details such as poetry, costume, etc.” Similar thoughts shared by Malavika and Jyotsna, proved that the mentor and the mentee were on the same page.
“The feeling of being around an experienced dancer, who can still get excited about a simple ‘Alapadma’ or a ‘kita thaka thari kita thom’ falling in place, is inspirational and contagious,” begins Jyotsna. “How do you walk into a space and devour it with the interaction of body and space? How do you chisel your movements? How do you decide when to show restraint and when to exaggerate the abhinaya? As a mentor, she helps me articulate my ideas in dance and invest in the essence of the movement. Silence in dance, how to choose a sound design, work ethics and attention to detail are things that stand out among whatever I have learnt from her.
“She culls out strengths, built from what I learnt from my teachers. It is difficult to shift dynamics when you have a student-teacher relationship. There is a creative freedom with a mentor, which one can appreciate only after going through the rigorous training,” elaborates Jyotsna, who has recently been selected for the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Kala Puraskar award by The Sangeet Natak Akademi.
Malavika chooses her words as she says, “When art is not centre stage, how does one live a life in art? It is an entirely different world today, in terms of the demands on the dancer — from the time when a Yamini Krishnamurthy or a Sanjuktha Panigrahi performed or even at the time when I started performing. My training took place in a conducive environment, with my mother honing my skills and criticising my work, which may not be a support system that is practical for everyone to have. A mentor could create that fertile ground for the art to grow. I see the responsibility to validate the quest for those who are serious about the endeavour of dance and derive the great joy in transference of the grand vision.”
The launch of the Kalavaahini Trust is a recent step forward in that direction, awarding a junior and senior fellowship annually to deserving dancers, apart from dance immersion programmes and productions.
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