{"id":235,"date":"2017-10-02T17:37:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T14:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/?p=235"},"modified":"2021-10-19T14:18:18","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T11:18:18","slug":"balasarasawati-and-the-guru-institution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/balasarasawati-and-the-guru-institution\/","title":{"rendered":"Balasarasawati and the Guru Institution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before the founding of dance and theatre institutions and schools in the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century, the classical music, acting and dance traditions were taught by masters or <i>gurus.<\/i> The so-called <i>guru-sishya<\/i> system of education indicates a close personal contact between a master and his pupil. During daily contact the master guides and initiates his student into the secrets of the art according to his pupil\u2019s abilities and spiritual development.<\/p>\n<p>When revivalists around India, such as Rukmini Devi, Tagore and others, started the revival of the traditional performing arts it was the old <i>guru<\/i> families and lineages they turned to. The level of dance performances may have declined in some parts of India, but the skills and knowledge of these traditions were still preserved by the <i>guru<\/i> families.<\/p>\n<p>Thus the revivalists invited prominent gurus to teach new generations of artists at their modern institutes. This is, in fact, still often the case in modern art universities as well. Even today most of the serious actors and dancers working in the traditional fields of the performing arts privately continue their studies, throughout their careers, with their chosen <i>gurus<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 16%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-235 gallery-columns-6 gallery-size-full'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/in145.jpg'><img width=\"460\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/in145.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-1135\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-1135'>\n\t\t\t\tBalasaraswati was a master of <em>bharatanatyam\u2019s abhinaya<\/em> mime acting <span>Marilyn Silverstone, International Cultural Centre, Delhi<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Some dancers themselves were also bearers of age-old traditions. One of them was Balasaraswati (1918\u201384), a remarkable exponent of <i>bharatanatyam<\/i> in the seventh generation. She belonged to a family of dancers based in Tanjavur and made her debut in 1925.<\/p>\n<p>She was invited to work at Rukmini Devi\u2019s Kalakshetra institution and she thus deeply influenced the revival of <i>bharatanatyam.<\/i> She was renowned particularly because of her deep and nuanced <i>abhinaya<\/i> mime acting and she has been regarded as \u201cthe greatest single repository of the performing arts of southern India\u201d.<\/p>\n<div class=\"asset-footer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before the founding of dance and theatre institutions and schools in the early 20th century, the classical music, acting and dance traditions were taught by masters or gurus. The so-called guru-sishya system of education indicates a close personal contact between a master and his pupil. During daily contact the master guides and initiates his student [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3305,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/3305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}