Bharatanatyam

Bharatanatyam (also Bharata Natyam) is a classical dance of Tamil Nadu, danced to Carnatic music. Until the 1930s it went by the name Sadir. The name recalls Bharata, reputed author of the Sanskrit Natyashastra; a popular reading also hears bhava (expression), raga (melody) and tala (rhythm) in it.

Dancers work from the araimandi (also aramandi), a half-sitting stance with knees bent outwards, and build the body into lines and triangles. Kathak, the classical dance of North India, keeps the knees straight in its basic stance; Bharatanatyam bends them outwards. Pure dance (nritta) rests on adavus, set patterns that co-ordinate feet, hands, head and eyes. In abhinaya the dancer conveys meaning through hand gestures and the face. Beside a singer and the mridangam drum, the nattuvanar or dance master recites rhythm syllables and plays cymbals.

Hereditary devadasi dancers performed it in temples and at court. In the early nineteenth century the Thanjavur Quartet, four brothers at the Maratha court, shaped much of the concert repertoire, though scholars debate their share. A classic recital opens with the alarippu invocation, builds to the long varnam, moves through padams and ends with the pure-dance tillana and a Sanskrit sloka. Among the dancers who took it to public stages in the 1930s were Rukmini Devi Arundale, who founded Kalakshetra in 1936, and T. Balasaraswati, born into six generations of hereditary performers.