Indian Dance: Southern classical dances

The Khajuraho Dance Festival, begun in 1975, is held every year, usually in February, in the open air before the Chandela temples of the Western Group at Khajuraho in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh. It is organised by the State's culture department through the Ustad Alauddin Khan Sangeet evam Kala Akademi and features all the classical forms.

The Malayalam poet Vallathol Narayana Menon, with Manakkulam Mukunda Raja, founded the Kerala Kalamandalam in 1930; it later moved to Cheruthuruthy on the Bharathapuzha. It rescued Kathakali from decline and revived Mohiniyattam, which had almost disappeared. It is now a deemed university for art and culture.

Kalamandalam Kalyanikutty Amma (1915–1999) was among the first students of Mohiniyattam at the Kerala Kalamandalam and is called the mother of modern Mohiniyattam. Bharati Shivaji of Delhi and Kanak Rele of Mumbai (founder of the Nalanda Dance Research Centre) were leading Mohiniyattam dancers and scholars. Guru Gopinath was a Kathakali artist who created the 'Kerala Natanam' style. So three.

The Konark Dance Festival is held from 1 to 5 December at an open-air auditorium facing the Sun temple in Odisha. Natyanjali, begun in 1981, brings dancers to offer their art to Nataraja at Chidambaram around Mahashivratri (February–March). The Mamallapuram Dance Festival, organised by Tamil Nadu Tourism in the winter months, uses the great relief of Arjuna's Penance (the Descent of the Ganga) as its backdrop. All three are correct.

Tagore brought Manipuri teachers to Santiniketan after his 1919 visit to Sylhet. Vallathol founded the Kerala Kalamandalam in 1930. The Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act was passed in 1947. The Sangeet Natak Akademi recognised Sattriya as classical on 15 November 2000. So the order is 4-2-3-1.

Uday Shankar (1900–1977), trained as a painter in London, created Indian-themed works such as Radha-Krishna for Anna Pavlova in 1923 and danced with her. He then built his own troupe and, in 1938, opened the India Culture Centre at Almora, with teachers of several classical forms. His style was a 'creative' or modern synthesis, not the practice of a single classical form, so statement 3 is wrong.

Sitara Devi (1920–2014), hailed by Tagore as 'Nritya Samragini', was a celebrated Kathak dancer of the Banaras tradition. Shovana Narayan is a leading Kathak dancer of Delhi. Madhavi Mudgal is an Odissi dancer and teacher of the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Delhi. Sanjukta Panigrahi (1944–1997), a disciple of Kelucharan Mohapatra, was one of the great Odissi dancers. So only pairs 1 and 3 are right.

Kuchipudi is a dance-drama of Andhra Pradesh. Its showpiece, the tarangam, set to Tirtha Narayana Yati's Krishna Leela Tarangini, has the dancer moving on the rim of a brass plate, at times with a water pot on the head. It was traditionally the preserve of Brahmin male families (Bhagavatulu) of the village; women entered in the 20th century. Because it grew as theatre, dancers may speak or sing their own lines, so statement 3 is wrong.