Word: shanta
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...single bamboo flute and the wailng chant of a solo male voice. Against a plain black backdrop swirled brilliantly costumed dancers, unfolding exotic tales of lust and vengeance, ecstasy and evil. The occasion: the Broadway opening, prior to a U.S. tour, of the Indian dance group headed by Shanta Rao (rhymes with...
...year-old Bharata Natyam (the Drama of Bharata). High point of the program: Mohirti Attam (the Dance of the Enchantress), in which Dancer Rao proved herself a virtuoso performer. This dance had become so corrupted and eroticized by courtesans that it had been banned from the temples. Shanta, swathed in dazzling silk, danced it in its uncorrupted style, although her weaving, swaying interpretation was still sexy in a highly stylized...
...exercise muscles not usually used by Western dancers. Hands are incessantly occupied with mudras, the eloquent and elegant Hindu language of the hands. Head, neck, facial muscles, eyes, even eyebrows contribute. To reveal only the whites, wide-eyed dancers conceal the iris under the upper or lower lid, and Shanta Rao can make either one of her eyebrows dance up her forehead while the other is kept immobile. Fourteen Eye Movements. Mangalore-born Dancer Rao functions from her painted soles through her tinkling, braceleted ankles, right up to the bejeweled crown of her coal-black hair. She began training...