Bharatanatyam is among the world's most codified dance traditions. Its technical vocabulary is drawn from the Natya Shastra, a Sanskrit treatise on performing arts compiled roughly two thousand years ago, and the form has been transmitted through generations of teachers and students in South India ever since. Today it is practiced by hundreds of thousands of students worldwide, taught in academies from Chennai to Chicago, and performed on stages from village temples to international festivals.
Historical Roots: The Temple and the Revival
Bharatanatyam's oldest roots are in the dance performed by devadasis, women dedicated to temple service in Tamil Nadu, who danced as a form of devotion before the deity. This dance was called Sadir or Dasi Attam. During the nineteenth century, under colonial influence and social reform movements, the practice was suppressed and the devadasi institution was legally abolished.
In the early twentieth century, a group of artists — most prominently E. Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi Arundale — worked to revive and systematize the form. Rukmini Devi in particular reconstituted it as a concert art for the proscenium stage, renamed it Bharatanatyam (a combination of bhava, expression; raga, melody; tala, rhythm; and natyam, dance), and established the Kalakshetra academy in Chennai that shaped the form's modern pedagogy.
The Body in Bharatanatyam
Three primary technical elements structure the dance:
- Nritta — pure, abstract movement, focused on rhythm and form without narrative content. The body executes geometric patterns, and the footwork creates percussion against the floor.
- Nritya — expressive dance that combines rhythmic elements with abhinaya (expressive storytelling through gesture, facial expression, and gaze).
- Natya — full dramatic presentation combining dance and acting to tell a story, usually drawn from Hindu mythology.
A complete Bharatanatyam recital moves through all three modes across a structured sequence of items lasting two to three hours.
Hand Gestures: The Language of Mudras
The gesture vocabulary of Bharatanatyam is one of its most distinctive features. Single-hand gestures (asamyuta hastas) and double-hand gestures (samyuta hastas) each carry specific meanings that vary depending on context. The Abhinaya Darpana, a ninth-century Sanskrit text, catalogues the principal gestures and their uses. Some examples:
| Gesture (Hasta) | Form | Common meanings |
|---|---|---|
| Pataka | All four fingers extended, thumb bent across palm | Flag, cloud, river, street, night, forest |
| Mayura | Thumb, index, and middle finger joined; ring and little extended | Peacock, eyelash, applying cosmetics |
| Alapadma | All five fingers spread in a full open fan | Lotus in full bloom, beauty, fullness |
| Katakamukha | Index, middle, and thumb joined at tips; ring and little extended | Plucking flowers, putting on garland, pulling bowstring |
| Anjali | Both palms pressed together | Salutation, prayer, offering respect |
A trained dancer commands hundreds of such gestures and uses them in combination with specific facial expressions and eye movements to communicate narrative content to an informed audience.
The Recital Structure: Margam
A traditional Bharatanatyam recital follows a sequence called the margam, which moves from abstract to narrative and from simple to complex. The standard order includes the alarippu (an opening invocation in pure rhythm), followed by the jatiswaram, the shabdam, the varnam (the centerpiece, combining rhythm and expression at length), padams (expressive pieces), and concluding with a tillana, a high-energy closing piece in pure rhythm.
The varnam alone typically lasts thirty to forty-five minutes and is considered the test of a dancer's full range of abilities. Performing a complete margam is the goal of several years of serious training and is typically presented as a student's formal debut performance, called the arangetram.
Starting Bharatanatyam as a Beginner
New students typically begin with adavus — the fundamental building blocks of Bharatanatyam movement, each a combination of foot positions, arm positions, and body stance. There are nine main families of adavus, each containing multiple variations. Mastery of the adavus is the foundation on which everything else is built; teachers return to them throughout a student's development.
Training is traditionally transmitted directly from teacher (guru) to student (shishya) in a close pedagogical relationship. Students in the diaspora often learn in group classes, but the guru-shishya relationship remains the ideal. Adult beginners are warmly accepted in most academies and progress steadily, even if the arangetram is not a goal for everyone.
What Bharatanatyam offers that few other dance forms can match is a complete system: a philosophy of the body, a theory of aesthetics, a narrative tradition, a musical relationship, and a technique refined over two millennia. Entering even the outermost edge of that tradition is an education in itself.