Vilasini Natyam

Fascinated by a dance from an old Pakistani film, I started browsing the net on the origins of some of these dances and found that there is a revival in my home state of some of the devadasi dances under the name 'vilasini natyam' Dancing like the devadasis. Apparently, Arudra started the revival and encouraged the dancer Swapnasundari who has a book on the topic Vilasini Natyam : Bharatam of Telugu Temple and Court Dancers .
Here is a quick write upon the topic:

"VILASINI NATYAM refers to the Bharatham or solo dance- tradition which prevailed in those regions of Peninsular India where Telugu cultural forms were practiced for many centuries. Andhra Bharatham’s past and present history was initially researched by the renowned Telugu cultural historian , late Dr.Arudra .

Noted dancer Swapnasundari had taken up independent pursuit of the Telugu people’ Bharatham from the early ‘nineties, by directly learning from the descendants of erstwhile temple & court dancers of Telugu regions.

From 1994, Dr. Arudra guided Swapnasundari by monitored her dance-training under the hereditary Telugu hereditary female dancers while simultaneously guiding her in the historical aspects of Andhra Bharatham. The successful reclamation of Andhra Bharatham and its recasting as Vilasini Natyam is the result of their pioneering efforts."

The names Arudraand his son in law Kalyan Mukherjea appeared a few times in this blog.
P.S. A nice article about dvadasi type dances in films here