Malappuram: Kalamandalam Sathyabhama is facing backlash for her controversial stance on her colour-tinged casteist remark against dancer R L V Ramakrishnan. As debates rage over her stand on ‘fairness’ as the criteria for performing Mohiniyattam, veteran dance teacher Kottakkal Sasidharan, who has trained numerous foreigners, believes talent transcends skin colour and culture.

Sasidharan takes dance classes for theatre art courses in world-famous universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, etc. In 2006, he was behind training foreigners for a dance musical based on ‘Shakunthalam’ at North Dakota State University, USA. The hymns were sung in Sanskrit, but the dialogues were in English.

Enduring the chilly temperatures, he conducted the training that lasted for six weeks. Sasidharan recalled the exceptional performance of Kinwat, a dark-skinned girl who portrayed Sanumathi. With experience teaching numerous African Americans how to dance, Sasidharan believes they have better body language than whites in learning the art form. 

The Western art world has adopted a non-discriminatory culture. The new generation has realised that it is meaningless to follow these age-old unfair beliefs, Sasidharan said.