(Kamala Lakshman in Konjum Salangai (1962))
I’ve found a lot of good info about Kamala Lakshman, starting with the Web site for her dance school, Sri Bharata Kamalalaya. The school holds classes on Long Island (where she lives), as well in Westchester and in three different towns in New Jersey.
The front page of the Web site has the current date on it, but most of the information on this site doesn’t seem to have been posted after about 2003. Still, assuming that all the information is still applicable…
It tells us that Kamala is also involved in another school on Long Island, SUNY at Stony Brook, where she is an Adjunct Professor of Indian Classical Dance. And she teaches a class in bharatanatyam at the school’s Center for Indian Studies every fall.
That’s Kamala now, if anybody wants to take classes with her.
There’s also lots of good info on the site about Kamala then…
Such as the fact that she “enthralled” both Marshal Tito and Dwight D. Eisenhower!
The foremost exponent of the Vazhuvoor tradition of Bharata Natyam, Padmabushan Kamala is the ideal combination of Dancer and Guru. Her career in dancing has been a long and illustrious one. A recipient of the prestigious Padmabushan award from the President of India, she has performed extensively in India and abroad, serving as cultural ambassador of international acclaim. She performed at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and enthralled many dignitaries including Jawaharlal Nehru, S. Radhakrishnan, President Eisenhower, Prime Minister Chau Enlai and Marshal Tito, and the King of Jordan. She has been honored with several titles and has established a dance school, “Sri Bharata Kamalalaya.”
My favorite thing about this site is that it provides links to two very good articles on Kamala in the magazine Sruti. The first article talks more about her life, accomplishments, trials and travails, while the second article is more focused on her style of bharatanatyam and other specific aspects of her dance. The articles are posted as photos of pages, not actual text, so it might be impossible or very difficult to print out in a readable version (I know I couldn’t). However, they are still very readable on screen once you click on the individual pages.
Being that I am not all that versed at this point in the technical aspects of the dances, I particularly enjoyed the earlier article. In addition to having a bunch of great pictures (as does the other article), it’s got a fascinating narrative covering many different stages, including her rise to stardom as a kathak dancer at the age of five, the roles that she played in classic Indian cinema, and her days as an experienced dance guru in the U.S.
But the most interesting moment of the article, not surprisingly, is when it discusses the major part she played during the 1940s in the revival and transformation of bharatanatyam:
It was Kamala who transformed, almost overnight, the loathesome into the laudable. The timing was perfect. The conditions ideal. And her age was just right. She was still a child, a “baby,” and her innocence and charm endeared her to one and all. In addition she possessed the required blend of glamour and appeal that rendered Bharatanatyam a vitally alive art form contemporary relevance.
It was not just the mothers who looked upon their daughters as Kamalas in the making. K.M. Rangaswamy who has interviewed numerous dancers says that 99 percent of them admitted to having been inspired by Kamala.
The circle of audience for this art form swelled from a few hundreds to thousands to hundreds of thousands in course of time as Kamala’s dance sequences became one of the standard ingredients to a successful Tamil film.
Kamala – great dancer with a great story too.
Dances on the Footpath 
Great articles. She was clearly a very famous dancer, but still quite unfamiliar to movie watchers today. I first heard of her from your blog and now of course I can recognise her in the movies, too! Neither of the articles gives any details of her filmi performances, though. Did she just come on as an item dancer – like in Yahudi – and thats why I’ve never heard of her?
Its interesting to find that she’s a Kathak dancer as well because I was wondering about her dance style in the Kathputli dance and couldnt figure out whether she was a Kathak or a Bharatnatyam dancer. The hand movements and swift footwork were like that of a Kathak dancer but most South Indian dancers from that period (that I know of) are Bharatnatyam dancers, and it had me confused!
Thanks, Bollyviewer. Nice to hear that you discovered Kamala through my blog – always good to know that I’m at least doing something useful! :)
I think Kamala had some major roles in Tamil films. I’ve read about a couple of different films made in the ’40s in which she played the hero or heroine’s younger sister. I know she’s been a character in a number of films, though maybe some of them didn’t extend past the sort of character role she played in Kath Putli (where she was part of the plot but still didn’t do anything outside of her major dance scene). She seems to have had less of a role in Hindi films. Maybe that’s the catch. Outside of the two we mentioned, the only other Hindi film I think I’ve seen her in was Chori Chori, in which she did that one bharatanatyam item number.
Yes, the articles did not really discuss her roles in films. I would like to see some more recollections about her days in films and her interactions with the filmi world.
Nice observation, by the way, about the bharatanatyam vs. kathak dancing. (And maybe I should start capitalizing those dance names too. :) I never know, really – from what I see, the capitalization really seems optional.)
Hi My name is vani and i am working as a coordinator in an activity centre in sarjapur road.We would like to start bharthnatyam class in our activity centre .Is it posible to get your number to speak to you regarding the same.
Regards
Vani
Vani. Thank you for writing. I am flattered that you think I could be of some help to you in starting a bharatanatyam class in an actvitiy center India, but I honestly don’t see how I could be of any help. My acquaintance with bharatanatyam is only a couple of years old for the most part, and I am only a fan. Moreover, I live in New York City, where I grew up, and I don’t plan on traveling anywhere for a while, because I don’t have a regular job and I have no money. But if there’s anything you’d like to ask me about regarding what I’ve written here, feel free.
If there’s something that you feel would be better asked over personal e-mail, let me know; otherwise, this blog is open to all questions about the posts. Unfortunately, I don’t generally give out my phone number, and besides, unless it’s a good friend or somebody offering me temp work, I usually don’t answer the phone. :)
Oh I am so late to this party!! Richard, I just tonight discovered this interesting article on her from 2008 in Sruti Magazine: http://www.columbuscarnaticmusic.org/pdf/kamala.pdf Kamala says some fairly depressing things at the end regarding her current financial status and such (though I wonder if she was quoted out of context).
I then looked up the name of her school and realized that she is still alive and well and kicking and fairly well-known in the dance community (natharki had an article about her 75th birthday, etc.) WOW! Where have I been? For some reason I thought she had gone the way of Sayee-Subbulakshmi in terms of information availability…
I rushed to search your blog to see if you knew this too and of course you had already posted about it. :) I’m going to go read those lovely Sruti scans on her school’s website now.
Just thought to share my excitement!
Thanks, Minai. Yes, it’s very interesting stuff, very good articles!
Kamala Lakshman always conjurs up visions of a damsel waiting for her lover as in her song sequence ‘Andhi Mayangudade’ in the Tamil film ‘Partiban Kanavu’. Wonderful!