Nritya Smragini quits kingdom
25/11/2014
As
long as she lived Kathak queen Sitara Devi made every admirer of her feel
special. It was the way she moved on the stage and her spell lasted for a
lifetime. Born in 1920 Sitara Devi was just 12 years old when a dance director
cum filmmaker saw her perform pheras
on stage and met up her parents and signed her for a dance sequence in Usha Haran released in the thirties.
Success came early to dancer Sitara Devi.
She was just 16 and performing on stage
when Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore was in the audience and was so mesmerized by
her performance that he bestowed a title on her as India’s Nritya Samragini. Sitara Devi got married to KAsif director of Mughal-e-Azam and continued performing
Kathak shows all over the world. She continued to work in films whenever there
was an opportunity for a great dance and her last recital on screen was a holi
dance where she appears in the role of a boy in 1957 release Mother India.
For a long time Sitara Devi was confined
to bed and for the past many weeks she was on a ventilator. On Tuesday 25
November the talented dancer breathed her last. The country has lost the queen
of dancers.
Bhawana
Somaaya/ Tweets - @bhawanasomaaya
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