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Performing Artist & Director, Kalakshetra Foundation

Leela received the impulses for her growth as a dancer from Kalakshetra, the College of Fine Arts in Chennai, Tamil-Nadu. She adheres to the mould of the Kalakshetra technique yet has grown out of its binding, believing as she does that adherence to any school is a point of reference only. She is however deeply influenced by Rukmini Devi, the founder of that institute and its philosophy.

Leela joined Kalakshetra in 1961. Like other children, her education at the Besant Theosophical High School was coupled with her training in Bharata-Natyam. After finishing school and a couple of years in college in Mumbai, she returned to Kalakshetra to do a post-graduation in dance, now coming under the gaze of Rukmini Devi. She was absorbed into the dance-drama department and travelled with the company on tours in India and abroad. She left the institute in 1975 as one of its lead dancers. In the following decade, she went back every year and in 1985, visited China with Rukmini Devi and her troupe. In December of that year she was part of the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of Kalakshetra. Rukmini Devi’s passing away in February 1996, led to the creation of the Kalakshetra Foundation, on whose first board she served as a member. She remained a confidant of Sankara Menon, the Director till his passing.

In 1975, Leela joined the Sriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, Delhi and started there a department of Bharata Natyam. When she left the institute in 1990, there were over 60 students learning this southern Indian form. Since then, for the next fifteen years she has taught privately in the tradition of the guru-shishya parampara and has trained several dancers who have graced the Delhi stage with their particular sense of grace, knowledge and adherence to the best traditions of the Kalakshetra style. Among them are Aditi Jaitly, Aditi Rao, Meenu Venkateshwaran, Priti David, Kapil Sharma, Bilva Raman, Nithya Raman, Amrita Lahiri, Aranyani Bhargava, Mitsouko Takahashi and Yukiyo Kubota from Japan, Mohammed Anisul Islam from Bangladesh, Alexis Chen and Justin McCarthy from the United States, Zhang Yun, Zheng Yun and Jin Shan Shan from China, Boun Phone from Laos and Sonia Galvao from Brazil.

As a dancer, her seemingly understated delineation conceals a powerful and inspired inner resource, which gradually unfolds before the viewer. She is a virtuoso performer and sensitive interpreter of the nuances of this form. She enjoys the reputation of being a dancer who has excellent form in nritta and who has sensitive abhinaya. Leela has traveled extensively and performed at leading festivals of dance. She is widely acclaimed as a leading soloist of the Bharata-Natyam style of dance. For thirty years she has held the stage in Delhi both as a dancer and a teacher, as a writer and a choreographer. Among her contemporaries in Delhi are dancers of the eminence of the late Pt.Durga Lal – Kathak, Swapna Sundari – Kuchipudi, Madhavi Mudgal – Odissi, Sashwati Sen – Kathak, Bharati Shivaji – Mohini Attam and Sadanam Balakrishnan – Kathakali. She shares a special rapport with Madhavi Mudgal, with whom she has performed for years. Their coming together on stage set standards in the heightened sensitivity required to bring two classical dance forms together.

One of her attributes is her multi-dimensional role as a performer, a teacher and a choreographer of the style. As a writer too, she is able to interpret sensitively the intricacy and feel of her form. She is the author of ‘Rhythm in Joy’ – a book on the major classical dance forms of India. She has written a book on the dance forms for children as well, published by the National Book Trust. She writes regularly for magazines and journals on dance. A monthly column called ‘The Still Point’ appears in First City, a Delhi based magazine.

Leela is known to be a dedicated teacher who integrates the traditional practice and theory of the dance with broader perspectives on fitness, attitude, awareness, technique and methodology.

In September 1995, she launched a group called ‘SPANDA’ to explore new areas of creativity in Bharata-Natyam. Literally meaning ‘a vibration’ or pulse – Spanda presents new works, in an attempt to rediscover and reinterpret traditional vocabulary, while establishing in every work a more meaningful and intimate dialogue between dance, music and stagecraft. Critics reviewed the work as ‘path-breaking’.

Two significant documentary films have been made on her – ‘Sanchari’ by Arun Khopkar and ‘The Flowering Tree’ by Ein Lall.

Leela is the recipient of the Sanskriti Award in 1982, the Padmashri Award in 1990, the Nritya Choodamani Award in 1997 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2000.

In March 2005, she was offered the opportunity to head her alma-mater, a responsibility she accepted. She took over as Director of the Kalakshetra Foundation on the 6th May 2005.