Remembering Rukminidevi | Old meets new
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The ‘Remembering Rukminidevi’ festival at Kalakshetra commemorated her ideas
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The ‘Remembering Rukminidevi’ festival at Kalakshetra commemorated her ideas
The curtain call is the same. The actors are different. As the lights dim on the final scene for the closing benediction, the Kalakshetra artistes arrange themselves in a semi-circle and take a bow.
I remember Rukminidevi Arundale going up on the stage, year after year, glowing in the aftermath of a performance she had carefully put together. Perhaps thinking of the long hours she had spent on every detail — the story line, research, music , choreography, training, costume, jewellery — and that carefully rehearsed final bow. Her husband George Arundale wrote of her “engaging in every possible effort to ensure absolute perfection in tradition and in every detail of presentation.”