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Synopsis Dance Dialects of India aims at creating a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Indian dance and its cultural environment in India. The author, who made an all-India tour for writing this book, handled her subject with vision, perception, and eloquent expression. The book is addressed to the general reader, dancer, and connoisseur, interested in the arts and traditions of India, where regional forms of dance rituals, dance-drama, folk dance, and classical dance forms have existed for centuries as an essential part of sacred rise and festivals, and as classical art patronized and practiced by the royalty.

The book is profusely and exquisitely illustrated with more than two hundred photographs.

Shrimati Ragini Devi devoted her life to the classical dance of India, and achieved wide recognition in India and the West. She took it upon herself to interpret Indian dance and song to the West and made her debut in New York, accompanied by Hindu musucuans. Not satisfied with mere success in the USA and imbued with a spirit of creative activity ragini Devi returned to India and studied traditional dance and dance-drama which were fast becoming a lost art.

Ragini devi's career in India unique in the annals of art. She was the first to rediscover kathakali dance-drama hidden in obscurity, and presented this art and other classical and provincial dances in her performances throughout India, evoking national interest in a declining art.