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Nilimma
Devi is an acclaimed artist, educator and choreographer whose
career has crossed barriers and spanned the globe. She is founder
and director of Sutradhar Institute Dance and Related Arts
(SIDRA). Under her direction (1989 - present) she has made the
Silver Spring based Institute into a community touchstone.
Nilimma preserves the artistic lineage from three great Indian
dance gurus — Padmashri Prahlad Vedantam Sarma, Jaganath Vedantam
Sarma and Dr. Nataraja Ramakrishna — in her work.
In 2018,
she received the Saraswati award from the Indian Minister of
Culture for Creativity and the body of her lifetime’s work. In
2015, she was accorded the prestigious Pola Nirenska Lifetime
Achievement in Dance Award by Washington Performing Arts Society.
Since her
training in the 1960s, Nilimma has been a pioneer as a woman in
the field of dance linguistics. Over the next decades, she made
her art accessible to diverse cultures. She translated
traditional Indian songs in Telegu into English. She took Indian
dance to new spaces. She made connections between traditional
Indian dance, African American, and Native American dance forms,
promoting inclusivity and cross-cultural contact. In 2002, the
Washington Post said, “Devi, has pushed the form forward with the
contemporary innovations of Walk the Sky.” Hers is one of the
first Kuchipudi academies established in the West, with “…efforts
to merge artistic endeavors in a diversity of cultures.”
(Maryland State Arts Council, 2009)
At any
given time, approximately 200 students study under Nilimma Devi,
and her performances at such venues as the Millennium Stage,
Smithsonian Sackler Gallery, and the Folk Life Festival, Rhythm
Festival in Baltimore reach thousands of Maryland residents. She
has partnered with the Davis Art Center in Washington D.C. to
bring dance and yoga to underprivileged youth in the inner-city
community of D.C.
In 2006
Ms. Devi was asked to join the CID, International Dance UNESCO. A
former member of the Center for South Asian Studies,
International Mimes and Congress on Research in Dance (CORD), she
presented her research on dance in the Indian immigrant
community, "The Communal Embrace", in 1992 for CORD. In
1994, Ms. Devi was a movement and cultural consultant for Paul
McNally's play "A Perfect Ganesh" at the Arena Stage in
Washington D.C.
An
artist-in-residence at the Universities of Maryland, George
Washington, George Mason, Osmania, and Johns Hopkins, Ms. Devi
has been associated with the Shiraz University in Iran and the
University of London's Goldsmith's College. A recipient of the
prestigious senior research grant AIIS, American Institute of
American Studies, Ms. Devi explored creativity in hand gestures
in Indian classical dance. The Twenty-first Century grant for
2004 and 2005 by the Montgomery County Arts Council enabled Ms.
Devi to design a special interdisciplinary program for elementary
schools using storytelling, yoga, writing, and dance. Running
thirty shows at the Discovery Theater the dance drama captivated
young audiences.
Ms. Devi
is also the director of the Devi Dance Theater, which has
performed at the Kennedy Center, The Dance Place, the
Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, and for Voice of America.
In 2002, the Choreographers Commissioning Project of the Kennedy
Center awarded Devi a grant to create Walk the Sky. Devi's
"hauntingly beautiful", "Poetry in Motion"
(Washington Post) work is inspired by the 12th Century radical
poetess, Mahadevi Akka and has won international accolades.
Devi's
own battle to master the secrets of gender and caste exclusive
Kuchipudi dance continually inspires her idea of freedom, and
crossing of barriers. From the Diary of Sita, explored the epic
Ramayana from the unorthodox perspective of heroine Sita, which
premiered at The Dance Place in 2006. The drama of her personal
and professional battle to master the highly coveted secret art
of Kuchipudi emerges as a powerful metaphor in her work. She was
the recipient of master apprenticeship award and Choreographic
grant 2006/2007 from MD State Arts Council. She has launched her
new work 'Mandala - A voyage within'. In recognition of this
lifetime body of work, the Governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley,
has appointed her this year's member of the Maryland State Arts
Council for a second term of three years. At Johns Hopkins in
2018, she presented her lecture on the “Indian dance and Turn
out” on their forum of Kinesiology. In 2020, she spoke at the
International Folklife Festival in Baltimore on the panel, “Arts
in the Community."
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