- Sitara Devi
Sitara Devi: A Dancing Star Fades Away
People | Indo-Asian New Service | Updated: November 25, 2014 22:54 IST
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MUMBAI: In an era when men wore women's costumes in theatre, dramas, songs and even the fledgling film industry, one young Indian dancer shattered stereotypes. She was Sitara Devi.
Born in Kolkata as Dhanalakshmi in 1920, and called Dhanno, Sitara Devi later became a living legend - a renowned exponent of the classical Kathak style of Indian dance.
A school dropout, Sitara Devi struggled against all odds to excel in her chosen field and brought Kathak from the domain of nautch girls to the global arena.
Her performance at the age of 16 before India's first Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in Mumbai left him so impressed that he bestowed on her the title 'Nritya Samragini' (Empress of Dance).
Sitara Devi came from an ordinary but talented Brahmin family of Varanasi which lived in Kolkata and later in Mumbai.
Her father Sukhadev Maharaj was a Sanskrit scholar, researched in Bharat Natyashastra and was a Kathak dancer-teacher, a member of the Royal Court of Nepal, and mother Matsya Kumari was related to Nepal royal family.
In the 1920s, Sukhadev Maharaj met Tagore who encouraged him to revive the lost Indian dance form Kathak and elevate it to a dignified status.
Sukhadev Maharaj introduced reforms to revive Kathak by including religious elements -- unlike what the nautch girls did -- and it slowly became popular.
He also taught Kathak to his daughters Alakananda, Tara, Dhanno (later Sitara Devi) and sons Chaube and Pande.
They returned to Varanasi and set up a dancing school where the daughters of local prostitutes were also admitted, and Sukhadev Maharaj battled social ostracism to popularise Kathak.
When her marriage was fixed up at the age of eight, Dhanno fought against it, demanding school education. The family finally relented and admitted her to Kamachhagarh High School.
There, Dhanno blossomed as a dancer, and her impressed teachers asked her to teach other children for a performance.
Finally, Dhanno's immense talent dawned on Sukhadev Maharaj. He re-named her as 'Sitara Devi' and put her under the tutelage of his elder daughter Tara. Tara is the mother of Gopi Krishna, the famous Kathak exponent, and nephew of Sitara Devi.
At the age of 10, Sitara Devi started short solo performances during movie intervals in a local theatre in Varanasi for a year and in 1931, the family shifted to Mumbai.
Recognising her huge energy reserves, her father designed a stringent regimen for physical fitness, enabling her to somersault, swirl, wrestle and swing around a tall horizontal pole 100 times with agility till she was 75!
Her dancing was full of vibrant energy. She developed her own niche style drawing from a treasury of themes, poems and choreography collected by her father, creatively analysing and combining the environment to suit each and every step she gracefully performed.
Soon after reaching Mumbai, she made a public debut at Sir C J Hall.
Later, Sitara Devi gave a Kathak recital before a select audience comprising Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and Sir Cowasji Jehangir in a private royal palace, when she was just 11.
At one such performance, Tagore publicly felicitated her with a shawl and Rs.50 gift, which she considered as her life's greatest honour.
"At that time my father whispered - 'Don't take only the gifts, he is a great man, seek his blessings' - I sought Gurudev Tagore's blessings to become a great dancer some day," Sitara Devi had said.
Five years later, Tagore described her as 'Nritya Samragini', an honour which remained dear to her till death.
Around 1932, Sitara Devi was offered roles by a filmmaker and choreographer Niranjan Sharma and she performed dance sequences in "Usha Haran" (1940), "Nagina" (1951), "Roti" and "Vatan" (both 1954), "Anjali" (1957) and the epic "Mother India" (1957), her final role in which she danced to a Holi song dressed as a boy.
Her high-energy, heavy rhythmic movements based on music could continue effortlessly for hours and occasionally included renditions of 'thumris' and 'bhajans' during the performances.
She blended the elements of two schools of Kathak -- one which was developed in Banares (east Uttar Pradesh) and one from Lucknow, (Oudh, or north Uttar Pradesh), and represented a forgotten era when Kathak used to be performed the whole night.
Over the years, Sitara Devi performed all over India and abroad, including prestigious venues like Royal Albert Hall, London (1967) and the Carnegie Hall, New York (1976).
The success in her professional life did not reflect in her personal life. She was married twice and both marriages ended bitterly, leaving her wedded to her first passion, dance.
Some of her famous students were Madhubala, Rekha, Mala Sinha and even Kajol among many more. She desired to set up a Kathak dance academy in Mumbai, but got no land from the government.
Honours came from all over, including Padma Shri. But Sitara Devi declined the Padma Bhushan, contending that she deserved a Bharat Ratna given her immense contribution to Kathak.
Alas, that was not to be. And the brightest star of Kathak finally faded away Tuesday morning.
Born in Kolkata as Dhanalakshmi in 1920, and called Dhanno, Sitara Devi later became a living legend - a renowned exponent of the classical Kathak style of Indian dance.
A school dropout, Sitara Devi struggled against all odds to excel in her chosen field and brought Kathak from the domain of nautch girls to the global arena.
Her performance at the age of 16 before India's first Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in Mumbai left him so impressed that he bestowed on her the title 'Nritya Samragini' (Empress of Dance).
Sitara Devi came from an ordinary but talented Brahmin family of Varanasi which lived in Kolkata and later in Mumbai.
Her father Sukhadev Maharaj was a Sanskrit scholar, researched in Bharat Natyashastra and was a Kathak dancer-teacher, a member of the Royal Court of Nepal, and mother Matsya Kumari was related to Nepal royal family.
In the 1920s, Sukhadev Maharaj met Tagore who encouraged him to revive the lost Indian dance form Kathak and elevate it to a dignified status.
Sukhadev Maharaj introduced reforms to revive Kathak by including religious elements -- unlike what the nautch girls did -- and it slowly became popular.
He also taught Kathak to his daughters Alakananda, Tara, Dhanno (later Sitara Devi) and sons Chaube and Pande.
They returned to Varanasi and set up a dancing school where the daughters of local prostitutes were also admitted, and Sukhadev Maharaj battled social ostracism to popularise Kathak.
When her marriage was fixed up at the age of eight, Dhanno fought against it, demanding school education. The family finally relented and admitted her to Kamachhagarh High School.
There, Dhanno blossomed as a dancer, and her impressed teachers asked her to teach other children for a performance.
Finally, Dhanno's immense talent dawned on Sukhadev Maharaj. He re-named her as 'Sitara Devi' and put her under the tutelage of his elder daughter Tara. Tara is the mother of Gopi Krishna, the famous Kathak exponent, and nephew of Sitara Devi.
At the age of 10, Sitara Devi started short solo performances during movie intervals in a local theatre in Varanasi for a year and in 1931, the family shifted to Mumbai.
Recognising her huge energy reserves, her father designed a stringent regimen for physical fitness, enabling her to somersault, swirl, wrestle and swing around a tall horizontal pole 100 times with agility till she was 75!
Her dancing was full of vibrant energy. She developed her own niche style drawing from a treasury of themes, poems and choreography collected by her father, creatively analysing and combining the environment to suit each and every step she gracefully performed.
Soon after reaching Mumbai, she made a public debut at Sir C J Hall.
Later, Sitara Devi gave a Kathak recital before a select audience comprising Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and Sir Cowasji Jehangir in a private royal palace, when she was just 11.
At one such performance, Tagore publicly felicitated her with a shawl and Rs.50 gift, which she considered as her life's greatest honour.
"At that time my father whispered - 'Don't take only the gifts, he is a great man, seek his blessings' - I sought Gurudev Tagore's blessings to become a great dancer some day," Sitara Devi had said.
Five years later, Tagore described her as 'Nritya Samragini', an honour which remained dear to her till death.
Around 1932, Sitara Devi was offered roles by a filmmaker and choreographer Niranjan Sharma and she performed dance sequences in "Usha Haran" (1940), "Nagina" (1951), "Roti" and "Vatan" (both 1954), "Anjali" (1957) and the epic "Mother India" (1957), her final role in which she danced to a Holi song dressed as a boy.
Her high-energy, heavy rhythmic movements based on music could continue effortlessly for hours and occasionally included renditions of 'thumris' and 'bhajans' during the performances.
She blended the elements of two schools of Kathak -- one which was developed in Banares (east Uttar Pradesh) and one from Lucknow, (Oudh, or north Uttar Pradesh), and represented a forgotten era when Kathak used to be performed the whole night.
Over the years, Sitara Devi performed all over India and abroad, including prestigious venues like Royal Albert Hall, London (1967) and the Carnegie Hall, New York (1976).
The success in her professional life did not reflect in her personal life. She was married twice and both marriages ended bitterly, leaving her wedded to her first passion, dance.
Some of her famous students were Madhubala, Rekha, Mala Sinha and even Kajol among many more. She desired to set up a Kathak dance academy in Mumbai, but got no land from the government.
Honours came from all over, including Padma Shri. But Sitara Devi declined the Padma Bhushan, contending that she deserved a Bharat Ratna given her immense contribution to Kathak.
Alas, that was not to be. And the brightest star of Kathak finally faded away Tuesday morning.
Sitara Devi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2010) |
| Sitara Devi | |
|---|---|
Devi in 2009
| |
| Born | Dhanalakshmi 8 November 1920[1] Calcutta, British India |
| Died | 25 November 2014 (aged 94) Mumbai, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | Kathak dancer |
| Children | Ranjit Barot |
Sitara Devi (November 8, 1920 – November 25, 2014) was an eminentIndian dancer of the classical Kathak style of dancing. Rabindranath Tagoredescribed her as Nritya Samragini, meaning the empress of dance, after watching her performance when she was just 16 years old.[2] The epithet continues, and she is still described as the Kathak queen.[3]
She has given performances in several parts of India, and in several other countries, including at the Royal Albert Hall, London in 1967; and at theCarnegie Hall, New York in 1976.[4]
Contents
[hide]Early life and background[edit]
Sitara Devi was born in Kolkata (then Calcutta) on the Dhanteras, the eve of the Indian festival of Dipavali in 1920 Being born around Dipavali, she was named Dhanalakshmi (nicknamed Dhanno), an epithet of goddess Lakshmi who is worshiped especially during Dipawali.[1][5] She could return to live with her parents’ only when she was eight. She was born in a Brahmin family, originally from Varanasi, and later settled in Kolkata. Her father, Sukhadev Maharaj, a Vaishanavite scholar of Sanskrit, earned his livelihood by teaching and performing kathak dances in different parts of India. Her mother was Matsya Kumari, who held a relationship with the royal family of Nepal. Sukhadev Maharaj, while serving in the royal court of Nepal had studied Sanskrit and had done an in-depth study of the Bharatanatyashastra; he also practiced and performed kathak dancing in which he excelled. Kathak became a source of his living, as also a passion, which he passed on to his daughters, Alaknanda, Tara, and Dhanno; and his sons, Chaube and Pande.
He had met Rabindranath Tagore, and was encouraged by him to revive the lost forms of Indian performing arts (like kathak), and ensure elevation of them to a dignified status. Sukhadev Maharaj decided to realize this goal by contributing to reforming the kathak style of dancing. At that time, kathak was being performed by nautch girls or boys, and girls of decent families were not expected to learn this style of dancing. He decided to give religious inputs to the content, which was quite different from the content used by the nautch girls. Moreover, he decided to teach this form of dancing to his daughters and sons. Elders of his community were scandalized, and Sukhadev Maharaj was virtually ex-communicated.
Sukhadev Maharaj and his family members had to face the ire of the community members, and his daughters were called prostitutes. This did not deter him in his determination. Sitara, recalling those moments, reminisces: “My father used to say that when Radha could have danced for Krishna why not our girls? Why should men appropriate the right to dance?” Sukhadev changed his residence, and came to another area of Varanasi. He established a school to teach children including his own daughters and sons dancing. He even admitted children of prostitutes who came to the school to learn dancing. Once, the law enforcement authorities came to enquire about the affairs of the school, and Sukhadev Maharaj presented a performance based on the tales of the Mahabharata. They appreciated his efforts. Little Sitara had been watching her sister, twenty years senior to her, learning dance, and she had managed to learn dancing quite well just by observing and self-practice.
Like the tradition of the time, Sitara was to be married when she was a small girl of eight, and her child bridegroom’s family wanted to solemnize the marriage. However, she resisted, and wanted to be in a school. At her insistence, the marriage did not take place, and she was admitted into the Kamachhagarh High School. While at this school, a dance drama based on the mythological story of Savitri and Satyavan was to be enacted in a cultural program to be conducted by the students of the school. The school was searching amongst the students for someone to do a dance sequence embedded in the dance drama. Dhanno prevailed upon her teacher by showing her an impromptu dance performance. The impressive performance clinched the role for her and she was also assigned the task to teach the dance to her co-performers in the sequence. After the dance drama, a local newspaper named the Aaj reported about the cultural program emphasizing that a little girl name Dhanno had enchanted the audience by her dance performance. Her father saw the news, and this changed his perception about his girl with the “twisted mouth”. Dhanno was re-christened as Sitara, the star, and she was entrusted into the charge of her elder sister, Tara for imparting her dancing lessons. Incidentally, Tara is the mother of famous kathak dancer, Gopi Krishna.
By the time Sitara had turned ten, she was giving solo performances, mostly during the fifteen-minute recess during movies in a movie theatre of her father’s friend. Her commitment to learning and perfecting dancing left her with very little time, and she did not continue her schooling. By the time she was eleven, her family shifted to Bombay (now calledMumbai). Soon after reaching Bombay, Sitara gave a kathak performance in Atiya Begum Palace before a select audience, which included Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and Sir Cowasji Jehangir. She immensely impressed Tagore who wanted her to give a special performance in Tata Palace of the Tata Group. There the eleven-year-old dancing damsel performed kathak, with all its nuances, for three hours. Tagore called her to felicitate her in the traditional Indian style of giving her a shawl and a gift of Rs. 50 as a token of her appreciation. Recalling those moments, Sitara once reminisced: “But as I thrust out my hand to receive gifts, I remember my father nudged me and whispered in my ear: ‘Don’t take only the gifts! He is a great man: ask for his blessings, girl!’ Obediently, I asked Gurudev to bless me that I would become a great dancer some day.”
Her debut was at Jehangir Hall (Mumbai), then the nerve center of metro’s cultural life. This was the beginning of a dancing career spanning more than six decades.
When she was just a twelve-year-old girl, Sitara Devi was recruited by Niranjan Sharma, a filmmaker and a dance director, and she gave dance sequences in some Hindi movies including her debut in Usha Haran 1940, Nagina 1951,Roti, Vatan 1954, Anjali 1957 (directed by Chetan Anand, brother of Dev Anand). In Mother India 1957, she performed aHoli dance dressed as a boy, and this was her last dance in any movie. She stopped performing dances in movies, as the same were adversely affecting her passion for excelling in the classical dance, kathak.
Personal life[edit]
Sitara was married to Nazir Ahmed Khan, K. Asif, and then to Pratap Barot, with whom she had a son, Ranjit Barot.[6] Her married life was not smooth, and all her marriages had come to an end. This left her finding succor in her passion, dancing.
Her style[edit]
Her dancing is very energetic and well researched. She has developed her own niche style of dancing drawing from the treasure trove of themes, poetry, and choreography collected by her father, as also creatively analyzing and assimilating the environment around her: each and every gait and step of a village belle or a veiled peasant woman. She has many times emphasized the tandava aspect, displaying graceful movements with vigor and vitality. She had great energy, which her father had recognized, and had set a strict regimen for physical fitness. Decades later she recalled: “My wrestling master made me somersault, swirl, and wrestle with agility and dexterity. Until I was 75, I continued my physical exercise by swinging round a high-hanging horizontal beam about a hundred times”.
Her family had devoted their life for four generations to development of Kathak and discovering and collating the nuances of the lost and missing links, and ultimately during the lifetime of her father kathak re-attained its lost glory and emerged as an important pillar of Indian dancing. Sitara continued the tradition, and contributed immensely to the development and popularity of this art form during her career spanning more than six decades.
Her dancing, characterized by its energy and rhythmic movements based on the musical notes, continued for hours, and sometimes also included renditions of thumaris and bhajans. She combined the elements of two schools of kathak, which had developed in Banaras (in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh) and Lucknow, the northern part of the state, then called Oudh. She represented a lost age when kathak used to be performed for whole night.
Recognition[edit]
For decades, She has performed at many concerts and festivals in India and abroad, including her performances in the royal Albert and Victoria Hall, London; and the Carnegie Hall, New York. Over the years, she has been conferred a number of awards, including Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1969) and the Padma Shree (1973), Kalidas Samman(1995) and Nritya Nipuna. However, to her, her greatest award is the recognition she received from Tagore. After observing one of her performances, when Sitara Devi was only sixteen years old, she was described Nritya Samragini (that is, the queen empress of dancing) by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Laureate.
However, she refused to accept the Padma Bhushan award, declaring, "it is an insult, not an honor," and as a report from the Press Trust of India quoted her saying: "is this government not aware of my contribution to Kathak? I will not accept any award less than Bharat Ratna."
Later years[edit]
Although her forte is kathak, she is also an accomplished dancer in many other styles of dancing including Bharatanatyam and many forms of folk dances of India. She also learnt the Russian ballet, and some more dances of the western world. With advancing age, her dancing activities have diminished, and she is working on a compiling a book encapsulating the researches done by her father and her in the field of dancing, especially in kathak style of dancing. All through her dancing career she had been teaching kathak dancing to many persons, including Bollywood celebrities such as Madhubala, Rekha, Mala Sinha, and Kajol. She envisions formalizing her teaching, and plans to set up a Kathak training academy.
To many the octogenarian Sitara Devi is a living legend and she has been popularly known as "kathak queen." Over the years, she set her own style, and has inspired many generations of artists and audience.
Quotes[edit]
“There is a reverse prejudice working in our society now. Male dancers are today seen as effeminate and not treated with respect. In fact, many families to day discourage their sons from taking up dance when they show any interest in it. It is frightening but true – the male dancer is becoming a near extinct species in India.”
80th,birth day of Guru Kalyana sundaram pillai[edit]
Sri. Rajarajeswari Bharatha Natya Kala Mandir,' celbrates Guru Kalyana sundaram pillai's birth day, at Sri. Shanmukhananda Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi Auditorium, Mumbai on Thursday, March 1, 2012 at 6-30 pm. Programme : A Tribute to our Master : A dance presentation by Viji prakash, Artistic Director Shakti School of Bharathanatyam, Los Angeles. and performed by her daughter and disciple, MYTHILI PRAKASH
- A film
'The Legacy of the Thanjavur Parampara' -a saga of eight generations spread over 300 years. Falicitations to Guru Kalyanasundaram by eminent personalities :
- Sangeet Martand Pt. Jasraj, * Dr. Padma subrahmanyam, * Sri B.M.Sundaram, * distinguished artists of International repute, dance schools, arts organizations and students. Sitara devi was the student and as well as one of the eminent personalities felicitated on the occasion.
Death[edit]
Eminent Kathak danseuse Sitara Devi died in Mumbai on 25th November 2014 after prolonged illness, She was 94. [9][10]
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