R. Muthu Kannammal, who received the Padma Shri in 2022, is a dancer of which traditional form?

Explanation

• Muthu Kannammal, from Viralimalai in the Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu, is one of the last surviving dancers of the Sadir tradition, the temple dance from which modern Bharatanatyam developed. She received the Padma Shri in 2022 for her contribution to the arts.

Muthu Kannammal was born into a family of devadasis, women dedicated to the service of temples, and her family had served at the Murugan temple of Viralimalai for generations. She was dedicated to the temple as a young girl and learnt the Sadir dance from her father, a dance master (nattuvanar). She performed in the temple for some years, until the devadasi system was abolished by law. The Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act of 1947 made the dedication of girls to temples illegal in the Madras Presidency. After this, the temple dance tradition came to an end, and she stopped performing for many years. In recent years, she has been recognised as one of the last living links with the old temple dance tradition, and she has performed and taught the old Sadir dances and songs to researchers and young dancers, helping to preserve them.

Sadir (also called Sadir Attam or Dasiattam) was the dance performed by devadasis in the temples and royal courts of Tamil Nadu. In the 1930s, E. Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi Arundale revived the dance, gave it the name Bharatanatyam and brought it to the public stage. The great dancer Balasaraswati came from a traditional devadasi family.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Mohiniyattam is the classical dance of Kerala performed by women.
• ✗Kathakali is the dance-drama of Kerala.
• ✗Yakshagana is the traditional theatre of coastal Karnataka.

None of these is linked with R. Muthu Kannammal.