CHENNAI, INDIA, July 22, 2011 (Livemint): When Hillary Clinton charted the second leg of her recent India trip, very few people expected her to travel from Delhi to Chennai–a first for any US secretary of state.
Many observers speculated that her decision was probably driven by the presence of a large number of American-owned car-making and computer-manufacturing factories near Tamil Nadu’s capital. The former first lady chose to get a taste of the city’s age-old association with the arts, visiting the Kalakshetra School of Dance, a premier residential dance school that offers instruction in the classical dance form of Bharatanatyam and Carnatic music.
Hours before her scheduled visit on Wednesday to the 75-year-old Kalakshetra Foundation in south Chennai, the tree-lined, sandy campus bore visible signs of excitement. As the sun set on Wednesday, Clinton ended her Chennai trip seated under the canopy of the banyan tree, watching a few senior students of the dance school perform a thillana, usually a concluding Bharatanatyam dance item involving complex footwork. Kathakali dancers and Mohiniattam performers also performed under the direction of Kalakshetra’s current director, Leela Samson.
Interestingly, decades ago, Chennai shunned this institution that is praised today as an upholder of Tamil art and culture–and where visiting dignitaries are taken to showcase the best of the arts. Its founder Rukmini Devi Arundale faced immense social pressure in the 1930s when she learnt Bharatanatyam, which was considered a lowly and vulgar art form by the upper classes.