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Rukmini Devi Arundale

Indian dancer and choreographer (1904–1986)

Rukmini Devi Arundale (29 February 1904 – 24 February 1986) was an Indian theosophist, dancer and choreographer of the Indian classical dance form of Bharatnatyam, and also an activist for animal rights and welfare. She is considered the most important revivalist in the Indian classical dance form of Bharatnatyam from its original 'sadhir' style, prevalent amongst the temple dancers, Devadasis. She was well known for her pioneering academy - the Kalakshetra in Chennai, India.

Rukmini Devi Arundale in 1940

Quotes

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  • Actually, dance forms an intrinsic part of worship in the temples. . . . India alone has a concept of a God who dances. Siva is Nataraja, Lord of dancers, who dances in the Hall of Consciousness and weaves into it the rhythm of the Universe. Within His Cosmic Dance are included the Divine prerogatives of Creation, Preservation, Regeneration, Veiling and Benediction . . . Dance in India has been so closely linked with religion, that today it is impossible to think of it divorced from this essential background.
    • – Rukmini Devi Arundale quoted in Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines
  • It is the spirit of Purusha and Prakriti, an expression of evolution of movement, a truly creative force that is handed down the ages. This embodiment of sound and rhythm creating spiritual poetry is called dance or Natya. . . . The first glimpse of the dance comes to us from Siva Himself, a Yogi of Yogis. He shows us the Cosmic Dance and portrays to us he unity of Being. . . . The Cosmic Rhythm of His dance draws around Him ensouled matter, which manifests itself into the variety of this infinite and beautiful universe.
    • Rukmini Arundale quoted in Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines
  • To recreate the temple atmosphere on the urban stage, and thus to facilitate a new kind of seeing that would enable the spiritual revival of the dance.
    • On the revival of 'sadir' dance form (which till then was the forte of the devadasis) she said on the settings of the theater for her performances quoted in "Rukmini Devi Arundale, 1904-1986: A Visionary Architect of Indian Culture and the Performing Arts", page 12
 
Office of Kalakshetra Academy
  • Dance was really the art of the temple and that her temple theater was built with that purpose in mind. It has many features of the temple , and we have adopted as much as possible all the ideals enshrined in Natyashastra.
    • On her "Kootahmabalam temple theater" set up in her hundred acre Kalakshetra, quoted in "Rukmini Devi Arundale, 1904-1986: A Visionary Architect of Indian Culture and the Performing Arts", page 14
  • Women have everything to do with bringing culture into everyday life, with the expression of it, with the helping and influencing of a nation, not only because they are mothers but also because they themselves are an example as individuals. The modern world needs a new force for the revitalizing of its ideals. India’s art has always been unconscious, unconscious of its own beauty, unconscious of others’ admiration, unconscious of the physical though expressed in Form. India is now beginning to be conscious and we do not know how to express ourselves consciously. A great dancer’s art must depend first on the life he or she expresses, secondly upon the beauty of technique and lastly only, upon its arrangement, costume, and presentation....Though form, technique and skill are essential, great Art must have the impetus of genius, and inspiration. Then there is permanency.
  • Animals cannot speak, but can you and I not speak for them and represent them? Let us all feel their silent cry of agony and let us all help that cry to be heard in the world.
  • The demand for vegetarian food will increase our production of the right kind of plant foods. We shall cease to breed pigs and other animals for food, thereby ceasing to be responsible for the horror of slaughter houses where millions of creatures cry in vain because of man's selfishness. If such concentration camps for slaughtering continue, can peace ever come to earth? Can we escape the responsibility for misery when we are practicing killing every day of our lives by consciously or unconsciously supporting this trade of slaughter? Peace cannot come where Peace is not given.
  • Many people have said many things. I can only say I did not consciously go after dance. It found me."
  • All the songs we dance to are of Gods and Goddesses. You may ask, why so many Gods and Goddesses? The only reply I can give is, Why not so many Gods and Goddess ?
    • quoted in Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines
  • Some people say, 'I believe in universal religion', but when I ask them whether they know anything about Hinduism, they answer in negative. They know nothing about Christianity, nor about Buddhism or about any other religion either. In other words, universality is, knowing nothing of anything. . . . Real internationalism is truly the emergence of the best in each. . . . But, in India, when I say India, I mean the India of the sages and saints who gave the country its keynote, there arose the ideal of one life, and of the divinity that lives in all creatures; not merely in humanity.
    • quoted in Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines
  • Why does the story of Kumarasambhava please me? It is because of the symbolism. Finally what Parvati wins is not passion but the devotion and sublimation of herself. Parvati wins Siva and she becomes united with Him, because she has discovered the greater, indeed the only way of discovering God. This is very beautiful symbology. Siva burnt to ashes all that is physical. So must a dancer or musician burn to ashes all thought which is dross and bring out the gold which is within.
    • quoted in Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines
  • Why was India a world power? Because Sri Krishna had lived in this country, Sri Rama had lived here and so had Lord Buddha. It was their Teaching that made India a great world power.
    • quoted in Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines

About Rukmini Devi

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  • An iconoclastic dancer, visionary institution builder, educationalist, elite woman privileged to travel the world when she was barely 25 years of age and empowered to work for global causes in Europe, Australia, England and America. Also perceived as uncompromising traditionalist, quintessential South Indian Brahmin girl, champion of animal rights, woman parliamentarian, craft revivalist, social reformer, cultural educator, and national icon.
    • Dr Avanthi Meduri in "Rukmini Devi Arundale, 1904-1986: A Visionary Architect of Indian Culture and the Performing Arts", page=xiii
  • Rukmini of glorious past will be guru Agastya’s messenger to the women and young ones in India taking up for a large part of the work there that I have been carrying on for years. Young in body, yet she is old in wisdom and power. Child of the indomitable will is her welcome in the higher world.
    • Theosophist Annie Besant in "Rukmini Devi Arundale, 1904-1986: A Visionary Architect of Indian Culture and the Performing Arts", page=10
  • A full flowering of the arts is only possible when Literature and Art, Philosophy and Science interact with one another. Kalakshetra is among the very few institutions where all such disciplines interact.
  • Narayana Menon quoted in "Rukmini Devi Arundale, 1904-1986: A Visionary Architect of Indian Culture and the Performing Arts", page=17
  • However, Hindu savants worked tirelessly to remove the Christian slurs cast on this art form. Chief among them was Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904–86), who protected and revived this dance by founding the Kalakshetra Academy of Dance and Music in 1936. She made it an acceptable norm for girls (and even boys) from middle-class households to learn Bharata Natyam. Though operated like a modern institution, it functioned as a traditional gurukula , focusing on prayers to the deity Ganapati, vegetarianism, and a guru-shishya relationship. Throughout Tamil Nadu, the guru-shishya form of decentralized, one-on- one learning spread in various ways as part of this revival. Thus far from being dead as intended by missionaries, colonialists and their Indian cronies, Bharata Natyam again became well established as a spiritual art-form in South India, and started to achieve acclaim throughout India and abroad. Kalakshetra grew into a university with a large campus in Chennai... Rukmini Arundale, a guru who rescued the dance form from the era of colonial evangelism, speaks of dance as 'Sadhana which requires total devotion'... She speaks of the Ramayana and Mahabharata as the 'essential expressions of Indian dance'.
    • Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines
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