page_title: Kalakshetra Foundation
section_title: Kalakshetra style
hierarchical_section_title: Kalakshetra Foundation / Kalakshetra style
caption_attribution_description: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Leela Samson, Managing Director of the Kalakshetra Foundation; and Ambassador Peter Burleigh, Chargé d'Affaires of U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India; enjoy the Bharat Natyam performance at Kalakshetra in Chennai, India, on July 20, 2011. [Paul Cohn/ State Department photo]
context_page_description: Kalakshetra Foundation, formerly simply Kalakshetra, is an arts and cultural academy dedicated to the preservation of traditional values in Indian art and crafts, especially in the field of Bharatanatyam dance and Gandharvaveda music. Based in Chennai, India, the academy was founded in January 1936 by Rukmini Devi Arundale and her husband George Arundale. Under Arundale's guidance, the institution achieved national and international recognition for its unique style and perfectionism. In 1962, Kalakshetra moved to a new campus in Besant Nagar, Chennai, occupying 40 hectares of land.
  In January 1994, an Act of the Parliament of India recognised the Kalakshetra Foundation as an "Institute of National Importance."
context_section_description: Having studied the Pandanallur style for three years, in 1936 Rukmini Devi Arundale started working on developing her own, Kalakshetra, style of Bharatanatyam. She introduced group performances and staged various Bharatanatyam-based ballets.
  The Kalakshetra style is noted for its angular, straight, ballet-like kinesthetics, and its avoidance of Recakas and of the uninhibited throw (Ksepa) of the limbs.
  According to Sankara Menon (1907–2007), who was her associate from Kalakshetra's beginnings, Rukmini Devi raised Bharatanatyam to a puritan art form, divorced from its recently controversial past by "removing objectionable elements" (mostly, the Sringara, certain emotional elements evocative of the erotic, such as hip, neck, lip and chest movements) from the Pandanallur style, which was publicly criticized by Indian dancer Tanjore Balasaraswati (1918–1984)  and other representatives of Tamil Nadu's traditional Isai Velalar culture. Love outside parameters considered "chaste" was not to be portrayed. Balasaraswati said that "the effort to purify Bharatanatyam through the introduction of novel ideas is like putting a gloss on burnished gold or painting the lotus". Lawyer and classical artist E. Krishna Iyer (1897–1968) said about Rukmini Devi, "There is no need to say that before she entered the field, the art was dead and gone or that it saw a renaissance only when she started to dance or that she created anything new that was not there before".
caption: Bharatanatyam performance at Kalakshetra, during visit of Hillary Clinton, 2011
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