Hemamalini Arni

Classical Dance forms & related music
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kvchellappa
Posts: 3598
Joined: 04 Aug 2011, 13:54

Hemamalini Arni

Post by kvchellappa »

Sanjay Subrahmanyan liked

मङ्गलम्
Lec 2 by veteran dancer Hemamalini Arni, an early student of the legendary Thanjavur Balasaraswati whose birth centenary is being celebrated this year. For info. film actress Hemamalini was named after this dancer! 😊

Ramkumar R:
The 83 years young Smt. Hemamalini Arni held us all spellbound with her lecture demonstration "Remembering Balasaraswati". As Sri V. Sriram summed it up, the people present there witnessed something extraordinary!
Smt. Hemamalini learnt from Vazhuvoor Sri Ramaiah Pillai, Sri Kannappa Pillai and Smt. T. Balasaraswati. She shared many memories from her association with Balamma. As a youngster, she had danced at the Music Academy and Smt. Balasaraswati came to her house to present her a cup appreciating the performance. She then taught her music and dance, always insisting that one cannot dance unless one sings and that one must sing while dancing. True to that, she kept singing as she did abhinaya on stage. So did her disciple Kiran Mayee who assisted her in the session.
Hema ji recalled how Balamma, while teaching her, would sing padams and then dance to them multiple times, each version different from the previous ones. Then she would get Hema ji to try it. This helped her get her students to perform to padams in their own way.
Hema ji sang and did abhinaya so effortlessly and effectively for the padams tiruvotriyur tyagarajan in atana, neela mayil in neelambari, adhuvum solluval in saurashtram, theruvil varano in khamas, mogadochi in sahana and krishna nee begane in yamunakalyani and the javali sakhi prana in chenchurutti. In krishna nee begane, she sang amazing sangatis in the upper octave for "jagadhodharaka namma udupi sri krishna".
Film actress Hema Malini's mother was a friend of their family and was so impressed with the young Hema Arni ji's bharatanatyam that she named her daughter after her.

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Hemamalini Arni

Post by Sachi_R »

Did someone record the whole demo?

kvchellappa
Posts: 3598
Joined: 04 Aug 2011, 13:54

Re: Hemamalini Arni

Post by kvchellappa »

Only a snippet of less than 2 min. is in FB. I read of her quite some time back in The Hindu also. I am parochially interested as Arni is close to my village in North Arcot district in TN.

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