Sitara Devi
Encyclopedia
Sitara Devi is an eminent India
n dancer of the classical Kathak
style of dancing. When she was in her teens, Rabindranath Tagore
, after watching a performance by her described her as Nritya Samragini, meaning, the empress of dance. The epithet continues, and she is still described as the Kathak queen.
She has given performances in several parts of India, and in several other countries, including at the Royal Albert Hall
, London
; and the Carnegie Hall
, New York
.
(then Calcutta) on the eve of the Indian festival of Dipavali, and her exact year of birth is not known. Being born around Dipavali, she was named Dhanalakshmi (nicknamed Dhanno), an epithet of goddess Lakshmi
who is worshipped especially during Dipawali. She could return to live with her parents’ only when she was eight. She was born in a Brahmin
family, originally from Varanasi
, and later settled in Kolkata; and her father, Sukhadev Maharaj, a Vaishanavite scholar of Sanskrit
, earned his livelihood by teaching and performing kathak dances in different parts of India; and her mother was Matsya Kumari, who held a relationship with the royal family of Nepal
. Sukhadev Maharaj while serving in the royal court of Nepal had studied Sanskrit and had deeply studied Bharatanatyashastra
; he also practiced and performed kathak
dancing in which he excelled. Kathak became a source of his living, as also a passion, which he passed on to his daughters, Alaknanda, Tara, and Dhano; and his sons, Chaube and Pande.
He had met Rabindranath Tagore, and was encouraged by him to revive the lost forms of Indian performing arts (like kathak), and ensure elevation of them to a dignified status. Sukhadev Maharaj decided to realize this goal by contributing to reforming the kathak style of dancing. At that time, kathak was being performed by nautch
girls or boys, and girls of decent families were not expected to learn this style of dancing. He decided to give religious inputs to the content, which was quite different from the content used by the nautch girls. Moreover, He decided to teach this form of dancing to his daughters and sons. Elders of his community felt scandalized, and Sukhadev Maharaj was virtually ex-communicated.
Sukhadev Maharaj’s and his family members had to face the ire of the community members, and her daughters were called prostitutes. This did not deter him in his determination. Sitara, recalling those moments, reminisces: “My father used to say that when Radha could have danced for Krishna why not our girls? Why should men appropriate the right to dance?” Sukhadev changed his residence, and came to another area of Varanasi. He established a school to teach children including his own daughters and sons to dancing. He even admitted children of prostitutes who came to the school to learn dancing. Once, the law enforcement authorities came to enquire about the affairs of the school, and Sukhadev Maharaj presented a performance based on the tales of the Mahabharata. They appreciated his efforts. Little Sitara had been watching her sister, twenty years senior to her, learning dance, and she had managed to learn dancing quite well just by observing and self-practice.
Like the tradition of the time, Sitara was to be married when she was a small girl of eight, and her child bridegroom’s family wanted to solemnize the marriage. However, she resisted, and wanted to be in a school. At her insistence, the marriage did not take place, and she was admitted into the Kamachhagarh High School. While at this school, once a dance drama based on the mythological story of Savitri and Satyavan was to be enacted in a cultural program to be conducted by the students of the school, and the school was searching amongst the students someone to do a dance sequence embedded in the dance drama. Dhanno prevailed upon her teacher by showing her an impromptu dance performance. The impressive performance clinched the role for her and she was also assigned the task to teach the dance to her co-performers in the sequence. After the dance drama, a local newspaper named the Aaj reported about the cultural program emphasizing that a little girl name Dhanno had enchanted the audience by her dance performance. Her father saw the news, and this changed his perception about his girl with the “twisted mouth”. Dhanno was re-christened as Sitara, the star, and she was entrusted into the charge of her elder sister, Tara for imparting her dancing lessons. Incidentally, Tara is the mother of famous kathak dancer, Gopi Krishna
.
By the time Sitara had turned ten, she was giving solo performances, mostly during the fifteen-minute recess during movies in a movie theatre of her father’s friend. Her commitment to learning and perfecting dancing left her with very little time, and she did not continue her schooling. By the time she was eleven, her family shifted to Bombay (now called Mumbai
). Soon after reaching Bombay, Sitara gave a kathak performance in Atiya Begum Palace before a select audience, which included Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and Sir Cowasji Jehangir. She immensely impressed Tagore who wanted her to give a special performance for her in Tata Palace of the Tata Group. There the eleven year old dancing damsel performed kathak, with all its nuances, for three hours. Tagore called her to felicitate her in the traditional Indian style of giving her a shawl and a gift of Rs. 50 as a token of her appreciation. Recalling those moments, Sitara once reminisced: “But as I thrust out my hand to receive gifts, I remember my father nudged me and whispered in my ear: ‘Don’t take only the gifts! He is a great man: ask for his blessings, girl!’” Obediently, I asked Gurudev to bless me that I would become a great dancer some day.”
Her first public debut was at Jehangir Hall (Mumbai), then the nerve center of metro’s cultural life. This was the beginning of a dancing career spanning more than six decades, which made her “a legend in her own lifetime”.
When she was just a twelve year old girl, Sitara Devi was recruited by Niranjan Sharma, a filmmaker and a dance director, and she gave dance sequences in some Hindi movies including her debut in Usha Haran, Nagina, Roti, Vatan, Anjali (directed by Chetan Anand, brother of Dev Anand). In Mother India, she performed a holi dance dressed as a boy, and this was her last dance in any movies. She stopped performing dances in movies, as the same were adversely affecting her passion for excelling in the classical dance, kathak.
Sitara had married K. Asif, a Muslim, and then to Pratap Barot. Her married life was not smooth, and both the marriages had come to an end. This left her finding succor in her passion, dancing.
Her family had devoted their life for four generations to development of Kathak and discovering and collating the nuances of the lost and missing links, and ultimately during the lifetime of her father kathak re-attained its lost glory and emerged as an important pillar of Indian dancing. Sitara continued the tradition, and contributed immensely to the development and popularity of this art form during her career spanning more than six decades. Her career proved the epithet of “kathak queen” given to her when she was just a teenager by the Nobel Laureate.
Her dancing, characterized by stunning energy, rhythmic movements based on the musical notes, continued for hours, and sometimes also included renditions of thumaris and bhajans. She combined the elements of two schools of kathak, which had developed in Banaras (in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh) and Lucknow, the northern part of the state, then called audh. She represented a lost age when kathak used to be performed for whole night.
(1969) and the Padma Shree (1973), Kalidas Samman
(1995) and Nritya Nipuna. However, to her, her greatest award is the recognition she received from Tagore. After observing one of her performances, when Sitara Devi was only sixteen years old, she was described Nritya Samragini (that is, the queen empress of dancing) by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Laureate.
However, she refused to accept the Padma Bhushan award, declaring, "it is an insult, not an honor," and as a report from the Press Trust of India quoted her saying: "is this government not aware of my contribution to Kathak? I will not accept any award less than Bharat Ratna."
To many the octogenarian Sitara Devi is a living legend and she has been popularly known as "kathak queen." Over the years, she set her own style, and has inspired many generations of artists and audience.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n dancer of the classical Kathak
Kathak
Kathak is one of the eight forms of Indian classical dances, originated from Uttar Pradesh, India. This dance form traces its origins to the nomadic bards of ancient northern India, known as Kathaks, or storytellers...
style of dancing. When she was in her teens, Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
, after watching a performance by her described her as Nritya Samragini, meaning, the empress of dance. The epithet continues, and she is still described as the Kathak queen.
She has given performances in several parts of India, and in several other countries, including at the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; and the Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
Early life
Sitara Devi was born in KolkataKolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
(then Calcutta) on the eve of the Indian festival of Dipavali, and her exact year of birth is not known. Being born around Dipavali, she was named Dhanalakshmi (nicknamed Dhanno), an epithet of goddess Lakshmi
Lakshmi
Lakshmi or Lakumi is the Hindu goddess of wealth, prosperity , light, wisdom, fortune, fertility, generosity and courage; and the embodiment of beauty, grace and charm. Representations of Lakshmi are also found in Jain monuments...
who is worshipped especially during Dipawali. She could return to live with her parents’ only when she was eight. She was born in a Brahmin
Brahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
family, originally from Varanasi
Varanasi
-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...
, and later settled in Kolkata; and her father, Sukhadev Maharaj, a Vaishanavite scholar of Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, earned his livelihood by teaching and performing kathak dances in different parts of India; and her mother was Matsya Kumari, who held a relationship with the royal family of Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
. Sukhadev Maharaj while serving in the royal court of Nepal had studied Sanskrit and had deeply studied Bharatanatyashastra
Bharatanatyashastra
Bharatanatyashastra is an ancient Indian treatise on drama, dance and music of Bharatvarsha, that is, India. The treatise is believed to be written between 100 and 300 by a sage named Bharata . Bharata is credited with codifying the theory of Indian dance and drama, and is regards as the first...
; he also practiced and performed kathak
Kathak
Kathak is one of the eight forms of Indian classical dances, originated from Uttar Pradesh, India. This dance form traces its origins to the nomadic bards of ancient northern India, known as Kathaks, or storytellers...
dancing in which he excelled. Kathak became a source of his living, as also a passion, which he passed on to his daughters, Alaknanda, Tara, and Dhano; and his sons, Chaube and Pande.
He had met Rabindranath Tagore, and was encouraged by him to revive the lost forms of Indian performing arts (like kathak), and ensure elevation of them to a dignified status. Sukhadev Maharaj decided to realize this goal by contributing to reforming the kathak style of dancing. At that time, kathak was being performed by nautch
Nautch
In North India, Nautch is one of several styles of popular dance, performed by girls known as "Nautch girls". The word Nautch is an anglicized version of नाच , a word found in Hindi and Urdu , and several other languages of North India, derived from the Sanskrit, Nritya, via the Prakrit, Nachcha...
girls or boys, and girls of decent families were not expected to learn this style of dancing. He decided to give religious inputs to the content, which was quite different from the content used by the nautch girls. Moreover, He decided to teach this form of dancing to his daughters and sons. Elders of his community felt scandalized, and Sukhadev Maharaj was virtually ex-communicated.
Sukhadev Maharaj’s and his family members had to face the ire of the community members, and her daughters were called prostitutes. This did not deter him in his determination. Sitara, recalling those moments, reminisces: “My father used to say that when Radha could have danced for Krishna why not our girls? Why should men appropriate the right to dance?” Sukhadev changed his residence, and came to another area of Varanasi. He established a school to teach children including his own daughters and sons to dancing. He even admitted children of prostitutes who came to the school to learn dancing. Once, the law enforcement authorities came to enquire about the affairs of the school, and Sukhadev Maharaj presented a performance based on the tales of the Mahabharata. They appreciated his efforts. Little Sitara had been watching her sister, twenty years senior to her, learning dance, and she had managed to learn dancing quite well just by observing and self-practice.
Like the tradition of the time, Sitara was to be married when she was a small girl of eight, and her child bridegroom’s family wanted to solemnize the marriage. However, she resisted, and wanted to be in a school. At her insistence, the marriage did not take place, and she was admitted into the Kamachhagarh High School. While at this school, once a dance drama based on the mythological story of Savitri and Satyavan was to be enacted in a cultural program to be conducted by the students of the school, and the school was searching amongst the students someone to do a dance sequence embedded in the dance drama. Dhanno prevailed upon her teacher by showing her an impromptu dance performance. The impressive performance clinched the role for her and she was also assigned the task to teach the dance to her co-performers in the sequence. After the dance drama, a local newspaper named the Aaj reported about the cultural program emphasizing that a little girl name Dhanno had enchanted the audience by her dance performance. Her father saw the news, and this changed his perception about his girl with the “twisted mouth”. Dhanno was re-christened as Sitara, the star, and she was entrusted into the charge of her elder sister, Tara for imparting her dancing lessons. Incidentally, Tara is the mother of famous kathak dancer, Gopi Krishna
Gopi Krishna (dancer)
Gopi Krishna was an Indian dancer, actor and choreographer.- Life and career :Gopi Krishna was born into a family of Kathak dancers. His maternal grandfather Pandit Sukhdev Maharaj was a teacher of Kathak and his aunt Sitara Devi is a Kathak dancer who has performed around the world...
.
By the time Sitara had turned ten, she was giving solo performances, mostly during the fifteen-minute recess during movies in a movie theatre of her father’s friend. Her commitment to learning and perfecting dancing left her with very little time, and she did not continue her schooling. By the time she was eleven, her family shifted to Bombay (now called Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
). Soon after reaching Bombay, Sitara gave a kathak performance in Atiya Begum Palace before a select audience, which included Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and Sir Cowasji Jehangir. She immensely impressed Tagore who wanted her to give a special performance for her in Tata Palace of the Tata Group. There the eleven year old dancing damsel performed kathak, with all its nuances, for three hours. Tagore called her to felicitate her in the traditional Indian style of giving her a shawl and a gift of Rs. 50 as a token of her appreciation. Recalling those moments, Sitara once reminisced: “But as I thrust out my hand to receive gifts, I remember my father nudged me and whispered in my ear: ‘Don’t take only the gifts! He is a great man: ask for his blessings, girl!’” Obediently, I asked Gurudev to bless me that I would become a great dancer some day.”
Her first public debut was at Jehangir Hall (Mumbai), then the nerve center of metro’s cultural life. This was the beginning of a dancing career spanning more than six decades, which made her “a legend in her own lifetime”.
When she was just a twelve year old girl, Sitara Devi was recruited by Niranjan Sharma, a filmmaker and a dance director, and she gave dance sequences in some Hindi movies including her debut in Usha Haran, Nagina, Roti, Vatan, Anjali (directed by Chetan Anand, brother of Dev Anand). In Mother India, she performed a holi dance dressed as a boy, and this was her last dance in any movies. She stopped performing dances in movies, as the same were adversely affecting her passion for excelling in the classical dance, kathak.
Sitara had married K. Asif, a Muslim, and then to Pratap Barot. Her married life was not smooth, and both the marriages had come to an end. This left her finding succor in her passion, dancing.
Her style
Her dancing is very energetic and well researched. She has developed her own niche style of dancing drawing from the treasure trove of themes, poetry, and choreography collected by her father, as also creatively analyzing and assimilating the environment around her: each and every gait and step of a village belle or a veiled peasant woman. She has many times emphasized the tandava aspect, displaying graceful movements with vigor and vitality. She had great energy, which her father had recognized, and had set a strict regimen for physical fitness. Decades later she recalled: “My wrestling master made me somersault, swirl, and wrestle with agility and dexterity. Until I was 75, I continued my physical exercise by swinging round a high-hanging horizontal beam about a hundred times”.Her family had devoted their life for four generations to development of Kathak and discovering and collating the nuances of the lost and missing links, and ultimately during the lifetime of her father kathak re-attained its lost glory and emerged as an important pillar of Indian dancing. Sitara continued the tradition, and contributed immensely to the development and popularity of this art form during her career spanning more than six decades. Her career proved the epithet of “kathak queen” given to her when she was just a teenager by the Nobel Laureate.
Her dancing, characterized by stunning energy, rhythmic movements based on the musical notes, continued for hours, and sometimes also included renditions of thumaris and bhajans. She combined the elements of two schools of kathak, which had developed in Banaras (in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh) and Lucknow, the northern part of the state, then called audh. She represented a lost age when kathak used to be performed for whole night.
Recognition
For decades, She has performed at many concerts and festivals in India and abroad, including her performances in the royal Albert and Victoria Hall, London; and the Carnegie Hall, New York. Over the years, she has been conferred a number of awards, including Sangeet Natak Akademi AwardSangeet Natak Akademi Award
Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar is an award given by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama. It is the highest Indian recognition given to practicing artists. The award consists since 2003 of Rs. 50,000, a citation, an angavastram , and a tamrapatra...
(1969) and the Padma Shree (1973), Kalidas Samman
Kalidas samman
The Kalidas Samman is a prestigious arts award presented annually by the government of Madhya Pradesh in India. The award is named after Kālidāsa, a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer of ancient India, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language.The Kalidas Samman...
(1995) and Nritya Nipuna. However, to her, her greatest award is the recognition she received from Tagore. After observing one of her performances, when Sitara Devi was only sixteen years old, she was described Nritya Samragini (that is, the queen empress of dancing) by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Laureate.
However, she refused to accept the Padma Bhushan award, declaring, "it is an insult, not an honor," and as a report from the Press Trust of India quoted her saying: "is this government not aware of my contribution to Kathak? I will not accept any award less than Bharat Ratna."
Later years
Although her forte is kathak, she is also an accomplished dancer in many other styles of dancing including Bharatanatyam and many forms of folk dances of India. She also learnt the Russian ballet, and some more dances of the western world. With advancing age, her dancing activities have diminished, and she is working on a compiling a book encapsulating the researches done by her father and her in the field of dancing, especially in kathak style of dancing. All through her dancing career she had been teaching kathak dancing to many persons, including celebrities of the Bollywood like Madhubala, Rekha, Mala Sinha, and Kajol. She envisions formalizing her teaching, and plans to set up a dance academy especially oriented to impart training to aspirants desiring to learn kathak.To many the octogenarian Sitara Devi is a living legend and she has been popularly known as "kathak queen." Over the years, she set her own style, and has inspired many generations of artists and audience.
Quotes
“There is a reverse prejudice working in our society now. Male dancers are today seen as effeminate and not treated with respect. In fact, many families to day discourage their sons from taking up dance when they show any interest in it. It is frightening but true – the male dancer is becoming a near extinct species in India.”Trivia
- She learned to write English to sign on the autograph books of her fans.
- Famous music arranger and drummer Ranjit Barot is her son.