The 100th birth anniversary of legendary classical dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai was celebrated today by search engine giant Google with a colourful doodle on its India homepage.
Known for her contribution to traditional Indian dance forms like Bharatnatyam and Kathakali, Sarabhai was "inspired to choreograph more than three hundred dance dramas with a strong base of classical tradition behind them".
The doodle depicts the dancer holding her signature parasol as her students dance on the stage of Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, which she founded in 1949 with her husband and famous Indian physicist Vikram Sarabhai.
"The small dance academy grew to become not only a study center for diverse art forms, but one that used the power of arts to bring about positive change to the critical issues facing society," a Google blog post said.
One of the few classical dancers trained in more than one dance form, Sarabhai, born in Kerala in 1918, spent her early years in Switzerland where she received her first lessons in Western dance technique Dalcroz.
Later she studied at Shantiniketan under Rabindranath Tagore before taking up Bharatanatyam under Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai and Kathakali under Guru Thakazhi Kunchu Kurup.
She received Padma Shri in 1965 and Padma Bhushan in 1992 for her contribution to the field of art.
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