The four-day Keli Mohiniyattam festival organised by cultural organisation Keli, Prithvi Theatre and Orange concludes tomorrow with a Sakthipooja Mohinyattam recital by Dr.Kanak Rele at Y.B.Chavan Centre. Sakthipooja Mohinyattam is the fourth and the last phase of the thematically divided festival. The other three: Gurupooja Mohinyattam, which was performed on January 26 by artists of the Kerala Kalamandalam, remembered the Mohinyattam gurus of past generations, Leading exponent Bharati Shivaji presented a recital of Lasyapooja Mohinyattam focussing on the aesthetic element of the dance, one in which she has made invaluable contributions on January 27 and the third recital Sargapooja Mohinyattam to be performed by Kalamandalam Sreekala on January 28 will be an exclusive presentation of the classical dance form.

For the first time in the history of the dance, two senior artistes Dr. Kanak Rele and Kalamandalam Satyabhama were honoured for their invaluable contributions to the growth, preservation, development and propagation of Mohiniyattam over the past decades.

One of the seven classical dances of India, Mohinyattam is characterised by wide swinging steps and the swinging movement of the torso. At least 400 years older than kathakali-the jealously guarded male preserve- Mohinyattam is performed only by female dancers.

The history of Mohinyattam can be traced back to the 16th century, during the reign of the great of patron of arts, Maharaja of Travancore, Karthika Thirunal Balaramavarma - a contemporary of Tipu Sultan who has authored the great treatise on Natyashastra called Balaramabharatham. "The Maharaja had witnessed a dance being practiced by women in his court which was rich in performance but lacking in style. He wanted to bring in the same style and classicism into this as was prevalent in the dances of Tamil Nadu," informs Dr. Kanak Rele.

It was during the reign of his grandnephew Swathi Thirunal that Mohinyattam acquired a repertoire, which ran parallel to that of Bharatanatyam. The migration of two brothers from the quarter responsible for fashioning Bharatanatayam, influenced the dance style. "Under the influence of these bothers, Vadivelu and Shivanandan, Swathi Thirunal composed a great many padams, varnams and keerthanams to which Mohinyattam was performed. However, the other styles of Mohinyattam were wiped out because in Kerala taal is important, while the dance in Thirunal's court was being performed to songs and poems which was alien to the ethos of Kerala tradition.

During the 1920s and 1930s Indian traditional arts anyway received a beating from the alien rule. It did not take ling for degeneration to creep into Mohinyattam. "Vulgarity creeped in and Mohinyattam almost went into oblivion. Even in the late 1950s the dance was being performed as an appendage in Bharatnatayam recitals. After two or three Bharatnatayam pieces, the artist would perhaps perform one Mohinyattam item," says Rele. As a result, the repertoire of the classical dance form was further truncated.

In 1930 however Mahakavi Vallathole and Mukaunda Raja instituted Kerala Kalamandalam and included Mohinyattam as a faculty in the institution. Guru Nattuvan Korattikara Apuredath Krishna Panicker and his disciples Chinnammu Amma and Kalyanikutty Amma played significant roles in reviving and rejuvenating the classical dance form and passing it on to succeeding generations.

It was in the 1950s and 1960s that methodology was brought into the dance through the efforts of Bharati Shivaji, who developed the aesthetic elements and Dr. Kanak Rele, whose major contribution has been in developing the grammar for the dance. Satyabhama, direct disciple of Chinnammu Amma, who is responsible for the present stature of Kalamandalam. Dr. Kanak Rele who has given Mohinyattam an ideological base and Bharati Shivaji who has retained the pure form of the dance, have brought Mohinyattam to the centrestage. The festival also included a two-day seminar in which the many aspects of this dance tradition was discussed by scholars and leading exponents.