Vimala Menon Biography 
Vimala Menon is a very famous Mohiniyattam exponent from Kerala, who studied from Kerala Kalamandalam. She is popularly known as Kalamandalam Vimala Menon. She is the founder of Kerala Natya Academy, Thiruvananthapuram where she trains students. Her daughter Vinduja Menon is also a trained classical dancer and former actress of Malayalam during 1990’s. As a Mohiniyattom expoennet, she is a recipient of Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Award in 1991 and the Kendra Sangeeta Nataka Akademi Award in 2006. She also holds a Guinness Record for arranging the performance of 1200 students for Mohiniyattom in one stage. She made this record in the year 2006. Natya Shreshta award, Kalamandalam award and Natya ratna award are other major awards received by her.
She was born in Irinjalakuda, Thrissur district to S. K. Krishnan Nair, a civil engineer, and Vishalakshy Amma. She was initiated to classical dance forms by Thripunithura Vijaya Bhanu and also learnt Carnatic music from M. R. Madhusudanan Nair. She joined Kerala Kalamandalam, Cheruthuruthi after school education, from where she learnt both Mohiniyattam and Bharatnatyam. Then she joined as a dance teacher in the Jawahar School at Neyveli Lignite Corporation. In 1966 she married Viswanatha Menon and went to Myanmar, where her husband was working as an officer. The couple had two children – a son Vinod and younger daughter Vinduja Menon, cine artist.
While staying at Bhutan too, she was active in her dance forms. She taught dance forms in Bhutan Government School and also performed in many stage shows. In 2004, she won the Senior Fellowship Award for her research work in "Ramanattom in Mohiniyattom" from Cultural Department, Government of India.
Published: N/A
Updated: April 18, 2014
