India, Sept. 23 -- Shakuntalabai Nagarkar, the irrepressible doyenne of lavani and a recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2008, passed away at 66 at her home in Nimgaon, a sleepy hamlet outside Ahilyanagar, after living with cancer for several years. The lives of women of the Sangeet Bari (a traditional lavani performance circuit in Maharashtra) have been preserved less on paper than through memories and performances, and Shakubai, as she was fondly called, left her own mark with characteristic elan. By the time her life and artistry found their way into a documentary film, book and theatre, she had spent decades mastering and transmitting the form.

There was a particular relationship Shakubai established with her audience whe...