**KANAK RELE** *Key-note address presented at the seminar on "Traditional Aesthetics in Contemporary Dance Practices" held at Nehru Centre, Mumbai. The second and concluding part appears in the next issue. ___ **Dr. KANAK RELE**, a renowned scholar and also a well-known performer of Mohini Attam, is the Director of Nalanda Dance Research Centre, Mumbai. Recipient of Padma Shri and the Central Sangeet Natak Akademi award, Dr Rele is one of our foremost dance academics. Her contributions to dance criticism include *Mohini Attam : The Lyrical Dance; and Bhavaniroopanna : On Indian System of Abhinaya. ___ Since I am concerned, in this paper, by and large, with traditional arts and their inter-relationship with our dance which is once again, by and large, traditional keeping in view the modern trends-creative or otherwise-I would like to start by examining these two terms - tradition and creativity. Let us understand what is meant by the term 'tradition'. In simple terms