Thankamani was born on 27 March 1918 at
Kunnamkulam in present-day
Thrissur district. Here parents were Panthalat Govindan Nair and Mangat Mulakkal Kunjikavamma. When
Vallathol started
Kalamandalam, she was the first
Mohiniyattam student to enroll there. She married
Guru Gopinath in September 1936. Thangamani became one of the earliest actresses in Malayalam after she played the role of Kayathu in
Prahlada (1941), the third
Malayalam sound film alongside her husband Guru Gopinath. Along with being the female lead, she also sang in the film. After the marriage Thangamani gradually stopped dancing Mohiniyattam. Together, they developed and popularized an innovative dance style called
Kerala Natanam (originally named Kathakali Natanam). Thankamani's
Pantadi dance and
Udyana Varnana together with the dances of Radhakrishna, Sivaparvati, Lakshmi Narayana and Sita of Ashokavana she performed with Guru Gopinath were once popular in
South India. Thangamani taught dance at Sree Chitrodaya Dance College, which was the first dance school in
Travancore. She was the teacher of most of the early students who learned Kerala Natanam like Lalitha, Padmini, Ragini, Bhavani Chellappan, Mangala and Lakshmi. Guru Gopinath-Thangamani Gopinath was one of the most popular dance pairs in India during the 1940s and 1950s. Thangamani, who left the dance stage in the late 1960s became a member of the Vishwa Kala Kendram Bharana Samiti in
Vattiyoorkavu,
Thiruvananthapuram. She died on 28 December 1990, three years after the death of Guru Gopinath. ==References==