Bharatanatyam

Bharatanatyam is the solo dance of the Tamil country, danced to Carnatic music, built on a fixed vocabulary of foot positions and hand gestures and on the idea that a dancer tells a story and keeps a rhythm at the same time. It was performed in temples and courts by the devadasis and by the nattuvanars who taught them, under the name sadir, and the twentieth century rebuilt it as a concert form for the stage. That rebuilding is the single most argued fact about the art and is dealt with below rather than skipped.

The repertoire is a sequence settled in the nineteenth century at Thanjavur: alarippu, a warming of the body; jatiswaram, pure rhythm with no story; sabdam, where words enter; varnam, the long centre of the concert in which pure dance and storytelling alternate and which alone can run forty minutes; a set of padams and javalis, which are interpretive and slow; and tillana, fast and abstract, to close. The vocabulary is the adavus, the units of movement, in ten or so families; the hand gestures are the hastas, twenty eight in one hand and twenty three in two; the facial expression is abhinaya, and the nine rasas are its range. The nattuvanar keeps the rhythm with cymbals and recites the syllables aloud.

A child usually begins between five and seven. The first year or two is adavus alone, in rows, to spoken syllables, with no music and no story, and students leave at this stage in numbers. Three to four years brings the first items; six to ten years, at three or four classes a week plus daily practice, brings a student to the arangetram, the first full solo concert, which runs two to three hours and is paid for by the family. The arangetram is a beginning and is often mistaken for a graduation. Those who go on study abhinaya for years after it, because expression is held to be the part that cannot be drilled.

Four banis are usually named: Pandanallur, Vazhuvoor, Thanjavur and Kalakshetra, with Mysore and Melattur added by some. They differ in the line of the body, the width of the stance, the speed and how much abhinaya is given. The contested history is this: the art was carried by devadasi families and nattuvanars, the Madras Devadasis Act of 1947 ended the temple system, and Rukmini Devi Arundale’s Kalakshetra reshaped the form for the stage, removing the sringara items she thought unsuitable. Her admirers call it a revival; the descendants of the devadasi families, and scholars including Avanthi Meduri and Davesh Soneji, call it an appropriation that took the art from the women who held it and gave it to others. Both accounts are current and a student will meet both.

Tamil Nadu

The home of the form, with the Thanjavur quartet’s repertoire, the December season in Chennai and the four banis taught across the state.

Andhra and Telangana

Kuchipudi is the neighbouring form and the two share much of their music and a good deal of their vocabulary, which is why dancers often learn both.

Karnataka

The Mysore court kept its own line of the form and the Mysore bani is named from it.

Kerala

Mohiniyattam is the Kerala solo form and is danced to Sopana style music rather than to Carnatic concert music, which is the clearest difference between them.

Deities

• Nataraja
• Siva
• Murugan
• Krishna

Festivals

• Navaratri begins
• Thiruvathirai · Arudra Darshanam
• Maha Shivaratri
• Aani Thirumanjanam · Aani Uthiram

Temples

• Thillai Nataraja Temple
• Brihadeeswarar Temple (Peruvudaiyar Koil)