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MIRRORS
& GESTURES: Conversations
with Women Dancers
C.S. Lakshmi
Rs 400 Hb 2003
81-86706-15-1
(All rights available.)
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'What I really
wanted,' says Lakshmi, 'was to try and understand
the artistes as women… living and functioning
as women and as artistes in a patriarchal society
that fixed them in particular ways. I wanted them
to talk about their lives in general, to learn about
how art was to be taken into account as a factor
in their everyday lives; how they sustained their
art over the years; how it influenced their decisions
in life, why they continued to pursue it, did they
have choices; what their family life was like; and
how they looked upon life as a whole.'
Here she recounts the experiences of well known
classical dancers Chandralekha, Zohra Segal, Sita
Pooviah, the Jhaveri Sisters, Chandrabhaga Devi,
Indrani Rehman, Leela Samson, Alarmel Valli, Malavika
Sarukkai and many others.
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C.S.
LAKSHMI
has been
doing research in the field of women's studies
for the past 30 years and has published several
articles on the subject. She is the author
of The Face
Behind the Mask
on women in Tamil literature. She writes Tamil
fiction using the nom de plume, 'Ambai'. She
is founder trustee and Director of SPARROW
(Sound and Picture Archives for Research on
Women), in Mumbai. |
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