Corrie star takes role in new play

From the Bolton Evening News, first published Thursday 4th Dec 2003.

ACTRESS Shobna Gulati is taking a break from playing Sunita in Coronation Street to star in a new play.

Rasa in association with the Contact Theatre, Manchester, presents the world premiere of Dancing Within Walls by Rani Moorthy runs from December 4 - 13.

Fusing drama, dance and music, Dancing Within Walls tells the true-life story of a woman who broke all the rules. Dancer Rukmini Devi was one of the 20th century India's most fascinating women, making history by defying tradition, marrying an English man and becoming the first high caste woman to dance on a public stage.

As independent India is born Dancing Within Walls tells the story of how Rukmini tames the erotic dance of the female temple dancers. She creates the acceptable classical dance Baratha Natyam. Yet in making the forbidden respectable, she invokes the anger of her guru Yellama and flouts five thousand years of ancient tradition.

Shobna Gulati plays Rukmini's guru Yellama, who is forced to live as a prostitute and practice her art behind private walls.

Trained as a Baratha Natyam dancer since the age of eight, Shobna Gulati is now one of the UK's most popular actresses, appearing in Granada's Coronation Street and as Anita in BBC 2's Dinner Ladies.

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