Meenakshisundaram Pillai

The tradition & historical record

Meenakshisundaram Pillai (1869–1964) is a classical dance guru considered as the prominent founder of Pandanallur style of Bharatanatyam, Indian dance. He lived in the village of Pandanallur, in the Thanjavur district in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. ¹

Meenakshisundaram Pillai, whose ancestors were nattuvanars, was a descendant from the Thanjavur Quartet, which comprised four brothers: Chinnaiah, Ponniah, Sivanandam and Vadivelu. The works of these four brothers, who were court composers in the early 19th century in Thanjavur, form the main classical masterpieces of Bharatanatyam. Baroda Guru Kubernath Tanjorkar (1916 - 2007), a disciple of Pillai, later established Tanjor Dance Music & Art Research Centre in Baroda, Gujarat. Thiruvallaputhur Swaminatha Pillai, also known as T.K.Swaminatha Pillai, was one of the leading disciples of Pillai. He learned Bharathanatiyam under the Gurukula of Pillai for more than ten years. He also mentored Ram Gopal, who became one of the pioneers of Indian dance in the west. Pillai was said to have been trained by his uncle, Kumarasamy Nattuvanar. He trained several famous Bharata Natyam dancers, including Devadasis such as Pandanallur Jayalakshmi, Thangachi Ammal, Sabaranjitam, as well as people from other castes such as Mrinalini Sarabhai, Rukmini Devi and Tara Chaudhri. He was one of the most sought after Bharathanatyam Gurus. After Pillai, his son-in-law Chokkalingam Pillai (1893–1968) became the doyen Guru of the Pandanallur style. Subbaraya Pillai (1914–2008), Chokkalingam Pillai's son, was the next leading Guru of the Pandanallur style. He grew up in the village of Pandanallur and was an apprentice under his grandfather and father. He trained leading dancers such as Alarmel Valli and Meenakshi Chitharanjan. ¹

The Pandanallur style developed a reputation for the emphasis on linear geometry that can be found in the adavu technique, and for its intensity and understatement in abhinaya. The Pandanallur style is renowned for its choreography, which include such highly regarded pieces as the Nine or Ten Tanjore Quartet pada-varnams. These works featured choreography by Pillai, who named the dramatic choreography "hands," and was also responsible for the adavu choreography for the swara passages. Part of their heritage is the valuable jatiswarams (in ragams Vasantha, Saveri, Chakravakam, Kalyani, Bhairavi), which incorporate abstract adavu choreography. Pandanallur style gives a lot of importance to abinayaha (expressions sometimes, abstract). Moreover, stamping the foot hard against the floor is discouraged in this style. Instead, slow movements are used to make the salangai (ankle bells) give out a lot of noise. The strong Footwork whereby every Step is marked, is a result of one of the Arts Music main feature of exactness and accuracy to bring out the Rhythmic vitality as the Dancer is required to have a Natural Rhythmic Body of expression. This Feature was mostly not possible to bring out by each and every one Student. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Meenakshisundaram Pillai”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Meenakshisundaram Pillai is recorded in open cultural data. The structured record cited below does not describe the practice, and this entry has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

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