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Posted by Arul Francis on April 27, 2007 at 17:54:52:
In Reply to: Leela Sampson Interview posted by Arul Francis on April 26, 2007 at 13:42:25:
: http://desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/ on Apr 25 2007
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make them memorize a classic.
Oops! But in all fairness I do have to say - some good things do come out of Kalakshetra. Four years ago I was staying with my Guru when he was visiting his native place (Pandanallur). One of his relatives, also a dance master, brought along two young people in their mid or late 20s who had set up their own dance school somewhere in Cuddalore and who wanted to visit him and talk about dance. There was this young dark woman and her brother: I was so impressed with their energy and idealism and vision and most of all when the young woman got up and danced the tanjore-quartet's vasantha swaram. She was so good! And I asked her: "so where did you learn this?" - since it was obviously authentic choreography. And she said: "I studied at Kalakshetra". I was just shocked. I had no idea Kalakshetra produced such good people. I was only familiar with the bad dance-dramas that they put on. That, and the dance-teachers who have come from there and who have turned dance-teaching into a high-profit franchise operation. I never kept up with this Cuddalore lady. But obviously whatever she did would be good and pure. I once saw a Kalakshetra dancer perform the tanjore-quartet's Huseini swarajathi. It was really really good. So obviously they do have the real stuff - or at least some of it. And obviously they can train young dancers from outside madras very well. I think that instead of just releasing all their graduates out into the world and letting them fend for themsevles, they ought to do what major ballet companies do, and pick out the 1 or 2 real top-notch talents from each graduating class and make them the equivalent of "etoile" or prima ballerina or whatever and give them a 6 yr run.
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