Even before I got to see Balasaraswati perform, I had heard of her legend. There was this great devadasi dancer, I had been told, who had given up performing for some years because she did not find the artistic climate conducive. In the puritanical discipline that I was subjected to as a student in Kalakshetra, my world was limited to the Adayar campus. I was touching my 15th year when a Sri Lankan co-student, Tilakavathi, told me about a performance by Bala. We decided we had to see her for ourselves.

When we did what foxed us was not her varnam but her costume and make-up: a velvet choli and pyjamas with a drab sari tied around the waist, none matching the other! This dancer's aesthetic sense contrasted with everything we had been exposed to. Nor had she the ideal dancer's figure -- or so we thought then.

But as Bala explored the first lines of the varnam we were willy-nilly transported to another world. Her conductor Ellappa Pillai was a gifted singer and Bala's dancing seemed to flow out of his music. Here was dancing that was not set to pre-rehearsed patterns; they seemed to be responding to each other spontaneously. What heightened the impact was Bala's own singing.

That day I realised the power of true art. Music and poetry, the "higher arts", are abstract, dealing with ideas. Dance on the other hand is tied to the body. Besides dance always came with an element of entertainment ingrained in it. But with Balait went beyond, it was an uplifting experience.

Impressionable as I was at that age, I wanted to be tutored by her. A friend of my father's told me that she was a performer par excellence, but not a good teacher. Her art was so spontaneous that there was very little by way of technique or grammar that one could take from her. He suggested that I be put under Ellappa's charge.

Soon Ellappa was at our house and the lessons began: the varnams, the padams exactly as Bala did them. One day he composed the difficult tana-varnam, Viriboni, for me. When I mastered it, he invited Bala to see me perform. She agreed and after the performance said, "This girl has it in her."

She was a woman who was never given to empty flattery -- she was considered a proud hawk who never could see any good in anyone else outside the close circle of the Tanjore tradition. When during the 1940s through the '60s a whole generation of dancer-actresses came to dominate the scene through films -- Kamala Lakshman, Ragini and Padmini -- she would ask, "What is this snake dance, peacock dance thing? Is this oriental dancing?" She might have had a limited vision and repertoire but it was one that she had internalised deeply. While there are many who drew from this repertoire there is none who has her grace, depth and artistry. And the world of dance will remain the poorer for it.

Yamini Krishnamurthy is a dancer and teacher of Bharatnatyam.