Rani Machaiah
A Kodava folk dancer who has led Kodagu's women's Ummathat dance for decades, honoured with the Padma Shri in 2023.
Iymudiyanda Rani Machaiah is the senior-most exponent of Ummathat, a folk dance of the Kodava community of Kodagu district in Karnataka. She was named for the Padma Shri in 2023 in the field of art, from Karnataka [1].
Dancer, organiser, teacher
Machaiah was born on 4 April 1943 [2]. Ummathat, Bolkat and Kathiyat are the best-known folk dances of Kodagu, and Ummathat is a graceful group dance performed by women [2]. She has led troupes of young women dancers in it for many years, as performer, organiser and trainer [2]. She has also created new dances of her own, the Kodava Kolat and the Kodagu Tribe dance, which made an impression in the state’s cultural circles [2].
Kaveri Kala Vrinda
In 1986 she founded Kaveri Kala Vrinda, which holds yearly festivals of Kodava folk dance and trains dancers in Ummathat, Bolkat and Kolat [2]. The group is linked to the Nehru Yuva Kendra in Madikeri and has brought new audiences to folk dance [2].
Her troupe has performed at the Karnataka Utsav and Phoolwalon Ki Sair in Delhi, at the Bengaluru International Film Festival, and in cultural exchange programmes in Jammu and Kashmir, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Himachal Pradesh, Mumbai, Mizoram and Punjab [2].
The Karnataka government gave her the Rajyotsava Award in 2005 [2].
Sources
- [1] Padma Awards 2023: list of awardees — Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Accessed 21 October 2026.
- [2] Padma Awards 2023: citation for Rani Machaiah — Padma Awards, Government of India. Accessed 21 October 2026.
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