By Aditi Sridhar

On 8^th March 2021, CFA’s artistic director for NUS Indian Dance, Mrs. Santha Bhaskar, was inducted into Singapore’s Women Hall of Fame in recognition of her pioneering work in the arts. In commemoration of her recognition, we take a look at the Indian Dance Doyen’s journey through the arts.

A Young Teacher

At the young age of 16, Mrs. Santha Bhaskar nee Pankyamma Santhamma, left her home in Kerala, India to come to Singapore to teach at Nrityalaya Aesthetics Society and perform and choreograph at Bhaskar’s Arts Academy. As part of her dance education, she had studied classical Indian Dance forms of Bharata Natyam and Kathakali with great gurus such as Ramunni Panicker, Guru Kunch Kurup and Kutralam Ganesam Pillai.

In 1958, she organized Singapore’s first Bharata Natyam arangetram, pioneering the traditional artistic graduation for the artform. An arangetram is a debut performance/ graduation ceremony for those who have been trained in classical Indian dance and have reached a high standard of accomplishment.

Nurturing Talent

In 1977, she began tutoring in Indian Dance with a small group of undergraduates in the Centre for Musical Activities, the predecessor of NUS Centre For the Arts. As the longest serving tutor in the arts at NUS, she has guided and honed the students of NUS Indian Dance for over 40 years in the cultural and interdisciplinary exploration of the form.

In her teaching, she has been committed to the practice and preservation of the traditional Indian dance forms to a high standard. Her influence has been felt in the development of the future generation of artists such as a multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, movement educator, researcher and writer Nirmala Seshadri (Young Artist Award 1994), Thamizhvanan Narayanasamy Veshnu (Young Artist Award 1998, who completed his Masters in Dance Studies in University of Auckland),  Aparna Nambiar (Tan Ean Kiam Awards, Alumni of the Year 2015, currently pursuing a PhD in Performance Studies at University of California Berkeley) and Kiran Kumar who is an Associate Member at the Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences (NUS Outstanding Alumni 2011, MFA in new media art from City University of Hong Kong and an MA in dance from the Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin.)

Interdisciplinary Pedagogy

In 2016, Mrs. Bhaskar welcomed the challenge of working with Quantum Physics which was the core of NUS Arts Festival 2016, and fully immersed herself in studying the principles of quantum physics while frequently meeting with researchers in the Centre for Quantum Technologies in National University of Singapore.

As a result, Mrs Bhaskar was appointed Outreach Fellow by the Centre for Quantum Technologies and conducted research on the connections between Bharata Natyam and Quantum Physics from 2015 – 2017. This resulted in the presentation of two performances of experimental works Sambhavna 1.0 and Sambhavna 2.0 in NUS Arts Festival 2016 & 2017 respectively.

More recently, she is guiding NUS Indian Dance on an exploration of the Kālachakra tradition for their performance Kaala Chakra (Wheel of Time) in the NUS Arts Festival 2021: A Question of Time.  Drawing from precursors in Vedic literature and in the Upanishads, the performance will investigate the concept of time (kāla) and cycles (chakra): from the cycles of the planets, to seasons and the cycles of human life and to the smallest units of human breath.

Celebrating Excellence

In recognition for her many contributions, she was awarded the Cultural Medallion for Dance in 1990, which is the highest accolade accorded by the Government of Singapore to artists who have significantly influenced the arts and society. She was also conferred the Bintang Bakti Masyerakat (Public Service Star) in 2016 in recognition of her decades of dedication to the development of dance.

Her recent induction into the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame was a culmination of her decades of service to Singaporean arts and is welcomed with felicitations by the NUS arts community.

Ms Sharon Tan, Director of NUS Centre For the Arts, captured the NUS arts community’s joy through a message of gratitude honoring Mrs. Bhaskar,

“Thank you so much for your many years of guidance for the NUS Indian Dance and for sharing your tremendous creative energy with us. You are indeed such an inspiration for all our students and all of us at CFA.”

Read more about Mrs Bhaskar’s Hall of Fame recognition.