The Artiste and the Wishing Tree

Thilagavathi has been away from home helping those stranded by the recent cyclone Nivar. When I am able to get through to her, she has just returned home to have a quick lunch and is heading out again to carry food packets to those who might need it. But she does chat about her journey in a world rather different from this! Thilagavathi's father and uncles were Katti Koothu artistes, carrying their art with them to places near and far. Thilagavathi grew up absorbing the art as it tempered most conversations at home. But her own tryst with the art form as a performer began when she was a mere 11 years old. P. Rajagopal had just opened an Institution to teach and nurture the art form and asked Thilagavathi's father to send her as a student. A few cousins and friends from her native village of Mulawadi in Ranipet district were enrolled to learn the art form at Rajagopal's residential Institute. For someone who grew up with Kattai koothu, Thilagavathi by her own admission was r...

  Dance Education is a series of articles that will focus on various aspects of the teaching-learning environment, methodology, practice and more. Bringing together varied perspectives from across regions,  ideologies and styles, we hope to encourage an active dialogue about what one might consider to be one of the most significant links between the performing arts and the world at large - the teacher and the taught. The classification of dance and music into 'classical' and 'folk' has often come under scrutiny. The basis of such a distinction is sometimes beneficial and sometimes not. The purpose here is of course not to debate the need or not for this distinction but to blur the boundaries so that we may be able to borrow from one pedagogy into the other. It is commonly assumed that classical arts are marked by a disciplined technique that requires structured teaching methodology. On the other hand, one is quick to assume that folk arts are imbibed in a familial or co...