Bala (1976 film)

Bala
Title card of the film
Directed by	Satyajit Ray
Produced by	National Centre for the Performing Arts, Government of Tamil Nadu
Written by	Satyajit Ray
Starring	Balasaraswati V. Raghavan Uday Shankar V. K. Narayana Menon
Narrated by	Satyajit Ray
Music by	Satyajit Ray
Cinematography	Soumendu Roy
Edited by	Dulal Dutta
Distributed by	National Centre for the Performing Arts, Government of Tamil Nadu
Release date	1976
Running time	33 Minutes
Country	India
Language	English

Bala is a 1976 short documentary film made by Satyajit Ray, about a Bharata Natyam dancer, Balasaraswati, fondly known as "Bala". The film was jointly produced by National Centre for the Performing Arts and Government of Tamil Nadu. The thirty-three-minute documentary features the life and some of the works by Balasaraswati in the form of narration and dance, starring herself. At the age of fourteen, Ray had seen a performance of Balasaraswati in Kolkata, then known as "Calcutta", in 1935, when she was seventeen years old.

Ray had initially planned to make a film on Bala in 1966 when she was in her prime. However, he could start filming in only 1976. Incidentally, though Bala was often called "a revolutionary Bharata Natyam dancer", she had never been filmed till she was 58 years old, in spite of having a career spanned over four decades. Ray decided to make the film on Bala, "the greatest Bharata Natyam dancer ever" according to him, to document her art for future generations with the "main value as archival". When Ray filmed then 58-year-old Bala for the documentary, she found to be wearing same pair of anklets which she wore more than fifty years ago for her debut performance, at the age of seven. Ray reported to have been said about the delayed filming of the documentary about Bala that "Bala filmed at 58 was better than Bala not being filmed at all."

The film's original script was included in a book named Original English Film Scripts Satyajit Ray, put together by Ray's son Sandip Ray along with an ex-CEO of Ray Society, Aditinath Sarkar, which also included original scripts of Ray's other films.

Tanjore Balasaraswati, fondly known as Balasaraswati or Bala, was born on 13 May 1918 in Chennai, then known as Madras. With her earlier seven generations worked predominantly in dance and musical fields, Bala started her Bharata Natyam training at the age of five, under Nattuvanar Kandappa Pillai and made her dancing debut in 1925, at the age of seven, at Kancheepuram at the Kamakshi Amman Temple. Her mother, Jayammal was a singer who encouraged Bala's musical training and was her accompanist in the dance concerts. Bala continued to do stage performance around the world along with her brothers, Mridangam player T. Ranganathan and flautist T. Viswanathan. Bala and her famous contemporary Rukmini Devi Arundale are often called as revolutionary Bharata Natyam dancers. She was awarded the second highest civilian honour given by the Government of India, the Padma Vibhushan, in 1977. Bala passed way on 9 February 1984, at the age of 65.