Kalamandalam Padmanabhan Nair (1928–2007) was an eminent Kathakali exponent, equally known for his capacities as a tutor, theoretician and author of a few authentic texts on the classical dance-drama from Kerala in south India.

[1] A son of the Kathakali guru Pattikkamthodi Ravunni Menon, Padmanabhan Nair was one of the early-batch students in Kerala Kalamandalam, where he subsequently joined as a teacher and retired as its principal in 1990.

He died on 3 April 2007, at his home in Shoranur, near his alma mater, where he led his post-professorial life with wife and Mohiniyattam exponent and guru, Kalamandalam Satyabhama.

[2] Padmanabhan Nair was born on 7 October 1928 in Kuruvattoor near the Kathakali village of Vellinezhi in the erstwhile Valluvanad territory, now in Palakkad district.

The cholliyattam of the most stylish characters in Kathakali especially from the classic plays of Kottayath Thamburan and Kottarakkara Thamburan performed by Padmanabhan Nair and filmed by late David Bolland (London) in 1985 at Kerala Kalamandalam is considered the most valuable document by researchers and connoisseurs of Katakali to learn the rudiments of its body language.