Kalanidhi Narayanan was a Bharatanatyam dancer and guru, best known as an accomplished teacher of abhinaya. She had an illustrious career journey during her second innings in this field as a guru, since the early 1970s, starting from the age of 46. Kalanidhi was a recipient of numerous honours, including the Padma Bhushan Award in 1985, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Bharatnatyam in 1990 and the Kalidas Samman in 1998. She is an early non-devadasi lady to learn this dance and perform it on stage in the 1930s and 1940s.
Kalanidhi Narayanan – Bharatanatyam Exponent
Her birth name is Kalanidhi Ganapathi and she was born to Sumitra and Ganapati in a Brahmin family of Tamil Nadu on December 7, 1928. Though belonging to a Brahmin family, her mother was keen on getting her dance education, and she received support from her father.
Young Kalanidhi Narayanan started formal learning of Bharatanatyam at the age of 7 and learnt under various gurus. She took vocal lessons from Manakkal Sivarajan, Nritham from Kannappa Pillai, and Padams and Javalis from Kamakshi Ammal. She also took lessons in Abhinaya from Chinnayya Naidu and Mylapore Gauri Ammal. Over the years, she became a prominent name of Abhinaya.
Her Arangetram happened at the age of 12
She was only 12, when she gave her first stage performance at the Senate House in Chennai, for the Madras Music Academy. She was only in her teens when she gave two notable recitals, one with Dhanamanikkam and another with Nattuvanar K. Ganesan, son of the Kandappa Pillai.
After her Arangetram, she had a brief professional journey when she was still in her teens in the 1940s. She was one of the early Brahmin women to learn the dance form and perform it on stage in the 1930s and 1940s. Her profession ended abruptly when she lost her mother at the age of 16 and got married into a conservative family. She returned to her profession after a hiatus of three decades in the 1970s.
Y. G. Doraiswamy became instrumental in her comeback journey
Noted art patron Y. G. Doraiswamy had seen her performance as a teenager, and he encouraged her to restart her profession. He even instructed dancer Alarmel Valli to teach her abhinaya, and her sons, who were grownups now, fully supported and encouraged to pursue her career.
Kalanidhi Narayanan was 46 when she started her second innings as a teacher, after a long gap of 30 years. She started to re-educate herself in dance by attending dance performances and Arangetrams in the city, and referring to her old notes. She also enrolled in a course on dance theory on Bharatanatyam by Dr. Padma Subramaniam.
Exponent of Abhinaya – Guru par excellence
Slowly, Kalanidhi Narayanan started getting students, and over the years, she established herself as a prominent teacher of Bharatanatyam. In the coming decades, she became “the most sought-after teacher for abhinaya”. Madhusri Sethuraman, Sharmila Biswas, Uma Vasudevan, Meenakshi Chitharanjan, Milana Severskaya, Ramya Harishankar and Hema Rajagopalan are among her notable disciples. She passed away on 21 February 2016, in Chennai, aged 87.
Also read: Saroja Vaidyanathan: Guru of Bharatanatyam, who scripted a similar story.
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