Padma Shri awardee 87-year-old R. Muthukannammal is known to be the only surviving artiste of the Devadasi tradition in India. Hailing from the Viralimalai village of Pudukkottai district in Tamil Nadu, she is the seventh generation of the ‘Sadir’ dance community. Viralimalai village is known for the Subramanya Swamy temple, where 32 Devdasis have served as a goddess. Sadir dance origin Sadir is an ancient dance form dating back to the 16-17th centuries, then known as ‘Sadirattam’. It got widely popular in the reign of Martha Kingdom – a solo dance performed for centuries by Devadasis in temples, and later…