The Living Rhythm of Bharatanatyam: Where Stone Temples Learned to Dance

A dance written in stone

Walk through the eastern gopuram of the Nataraja temple at Chidambaram and you will find 108 small panels. Each shows a dancer frozen mid-movement. These are the karanas described in the Natya Shastra, and they are the grammar of Bharatanatyam.

What makes the form remarkable is not its age but its continuity. The same adavus taught in Thanjavur courts are taught today in Chennai apartments, Mumbai suburbs and living rooms in New Jersey.

From Sadir to the stage

In the early twentieth century the form was nearly lost. It was Rukmini Devi Arundale, E. Krishna Iyer and the Devadasi communities who kept it alive and carried it to the modern stage.

Where the hand goes, the eyes follow. Where the eyes go, the mind follows. Where the mind goes, there is feeling. Where there is feeling, there is rasa.

That line from the Abhinaya Darpana is still the first lesson every student learns.