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This Indian Dancer Appears With 12 Other Women In Google's Doodle For International Women's Day

A pioneer of Bharat Natyam.
Google

Google on Wednesday commemorated International Women's Day by putting together a 'doodle' slideshow of women pioneers from across the world.

By featuring 13 remarkable women from history, Google wanted to honour each of them for making a mark in the world in her own way.

One of the extraordinary women featured in the doodle is the Indian classical dancer Rukmini Devi.

Born in 1904, Rukmini Devi popularised Bharat Natyam, a traditional Indian dance form with roots going back to over a thousand years. The dance form, which used to be performed in temples only, had almost disappeared from the public eye, before Devi revived it from obscurity and modernised its style, colouring it with fresh elements of music, theatre and costumes.

During her time, she braved criticism for her performances, which were considered 'low' or 'vulgar' for their modernist twist

Despite such rebukes, Rukmini Devi and her husband established the Kalakshetra academy of dance and music in Chennai in 1936.

Google had earlier featured her in their 2016 doodle as well.

The other women featured in Wednesday's doodle are:

  • Ida Wells: American journalist, suffragist, and civil rights activist
  • Lotfia El Nadi: Egypt's first female pilot
  • Frida Kahlo: Mexican painter and activist
  • Lina Bo Bardi: Italian-born Brazilian architect
  • Olga Skorokhodova: Soviet scientist and researcher in the field of deaf and blind communication
  • Miriam Makeba: South African singer and civil rights activist
  • Sally Ride: American astronaut and the first woman in space
  • Halet Cambel: Turkish archaeologist and the first Muslim woman to compete in the Olympics
  • Ada Lovelace: English mathematician, writer, and the world's first computer programmer
  • Cecilia Grierson: Argentine physician, reformer, and the first woman in Argentina to receive a medical degree
  • Lee Tai-young: Korean lawyer and activist who was Korea's first female lawyer and judge
  • Suzanne Lenglen: French tennis champion, who popularised the sport

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.