Indian classical Dance (BhârataNatyam

Dance is a movement art, transmitted as an oral, or rather aural-visual, tradition.  What then is the relationship of shastric texts on dance to the actual performance practice, with particular reference to Odissi dance?  Shastric texts have become a major reference point and validating factor of “classical” dance in India since the 1930’s, in Orissa since the 1950’s, and are increasingly used in the training of today’s educated students of the dance.
Did these texts play a central role in the development of the Odissi dance tradition as we know it today, or have they been used after the fact in a quest to capture and codify a tradition?  What are the consequences of using textual codification as a starting point in classical training?  To what extent has Odissi dance gelled into a distinctive form as it passed through generations of dancers up to the present and how much latitude still remains for innovation within the tradition?
What texts play a role in Odissi dance and what is that role?  To what extent do contemporary practitioners of Odissi base their work on shastric tradition?
What are the problems of textual representation of a three-dimensional art form functioning in time and space translated to two dimensional paper and word symbolization?  What are the difficulties of taking a fluid tradition in art and categorizing its elements in narrowing definitions, definitions which can intrinsically exclude nuance and variation, and lose its channeled logic in tangents?  Does the quest for codification threaten the fluidity of tradition, tying teaching to text in future?
And finally, what role has shastric text played in bestowing legitimacy of recognition to Odissi dance as a classical tradition?

In her book, "Indian Classical dance", Kapila Vatsyayan describes dance as the highest order of spiritual discipline, the enactment of which is symbolic of a ritual sacrifice of one's being to a transcendental order. The Natya-Shashtra, a treatise on drama and dance, reveals the status of the performing arts as equal to prayer and sacrificial rites in the pursuit of moksha, the release form cycles of rebirth. Both dance and dancer function as a vehicle for divine invocation and are mirrored in the architectural surroundings. To investigate this connection between dance and place, it is imperative to understand the mythical origins of architecture and temple dance. the Hindu philosophy of the cosmic man and its religious relationship with the Dravidian architecture of Tamil Nadu is the starting point of the discussion of a south Indian aesthetic. The Vastu-purusha mandala is a philosophical diagram that provides a foundation for Hindu aesthetics, linking physical distance, religious position and universal scale in both time and space. Used as an architectural diagram, it becomes a mediator between the human body and the cosmos. The temple, as a setting for dance performances, and constructed based on the mandala, shares this quality of immersing its participants into a multi-sensory spatial experience. However, while the link between architecture and dance culture was explicit up to the 18th century, it is less compelling in the context of modern south Indian architecture. With an increasingly unstable political landscape during the 20th century, architectural growth in south India during this period is almost stagnant. Unfortunately, this creates a break in the continuity and comparative evolution of dance and architecture, leading to the fragmentation and abstraction of dance in its modern form. South Indian dance has since transformed into a prominent cultural symbol and various incarnations of the dancer have become the isolated yet important link, between tradition and modernity. As an evolving living embodiment of contemporary culture and identity, her transformation from Devadasi, to an icon of nationalism, to a choreographer of 'high art' provides the foundation for the reintegration of architecture in the cultural fabric. The culmination of this research aims to reinstate the importance of architecture as a cultural nexus in order to restring a fragmented dance, community and cultural identity.

The intention of this article on the discord that exists in the form of parochial North-South divide which dancers feel separates them on one hand, and on the other hand the negligence towards the seminal content of abhinaya. The trajectory seeks to analyze the process of dissolving this dissonance and suggests resolution through abhinaya in Indian Classical dance.  Literary content and philosophical thought form a part of the shared heritage between Indian dance traditions comprising for example of literary masterpieces such as the Gita Govinda.

In RETROSPECT - forty years' immersion in South India as a student, scholar, dancer, teacher and designer. Reinventing oneself again and again by crossing borders, academic paradigms and formal disciplines.
Reflexive Essay commissioned by The Hindu, Chennai, 2018, abbreviated version published on May 30, 2019 as: 'Dutch Roots, Indian Branches' without  original photos: https://www.thehindu.com/society/dutch-roots-indian-branches-saskia-kersenboom/article27325350.ece
published on May 31, 2019 as 'Finding my own Place' with a selection of photos:
https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu/20190531/2829825645030

Abstract
The following paper was presented at the International Conference on Language , Literature and Culture  held in Pune in 2014 Dec
The art of dance in the context of Bharatanatyam (earlier sadir or dasiattam) was traditionally a familial system. The art was passed from generation to generation within the families so the art and its pedagogy was a part of the familial heritage. As this form stepped out of the arena of the family and entered into the unchartered territories of the urban milieu, institutionalisation played a strong part in evolving a syllabus for the pedagogy of Bharatanatyam which earlier was fully dependent on the Guru’s plan and the structure for the student’s learning. This process followed by the Guru in terms of content and manner of imparting knowledge would change for each and every student depending on the capacity of the student. Therefore it was a personalised approach. The teaching style aptly suited the traditional solo performing repertoire of Bharatanatyam.
Due to institutionalisation, teaching in a group class was introduced which had a great impact on the visual presentation. This resulted in two trajectories of presentation. One was the solo presentation and the other was the ensemble presentation.
But the greatest impact has been due to the digital media. With the availability of traditional music on the internet and easy access of dance pieces on the internet, the teachers are getting exposed to myriad techniques and styles of presentation which is influencing the content and the style of teaching.
My paper will lay down the following
1) Weighthe advantages and disadvantages of the digital media on the pedagogy of Bharatanatyam.
2) Put forth the idea of an inevitable creation of a shared, invisibly visible space in terms of choreography as a result of the digital media.
3)  The inevitable integration of several traditional teaching practices of Bharatanatyam with the  new modern and contemporary  emerging practices of teaching and performing in the context Bharatanatyam as a result of the digital media.

Seminararbeit 2003 Downloaden und kommentieren unter http://www.textfeld.ac.at/text/1039 Der gemeinnützige Verein textfeld setzt sich für die Online-Publikation akademischer Texte ein. Mehrmals monatlich läßt textfeld von den interessantesten Beiträgen Rezensionen erstellt, die auf stark frequentierten Online-Medien publiziert werden. Die eigenen Texte können unter www.textfeld.ac.at kostenfrei publiziert werden.

They were the women public performers who were repositories of Indian Performing Arts only to be marginalized as prostitutes in the making of Classical Dance and Music. Their identity and the world today an exotic commodity as the subject in the Bollywood, and for Dance theatres in a Capitalist Market. They were collectively called the Nautch girls. They were the Tawa'ifs of North India, the Maharis of Odisha and the Devadasis of the South. This article is based on a survey on Tawa'ifs in more than 10 towns of North India over a span of 8 years.-Navina Jafa

This is one chapter of a volume I edited including chapters by prominent dancer/scholars of other classical Indian dance genres
ISBN 9788182903647
Classical Indian aesthetics use human love (Shringar Rasa) as the closest metaphor to approaching an understanding of divine love, and consequently divides and subdivides the nuances and states of love in relation to anticipation, preparation, yearning, waiting, disappointment, betrayal, reconciliation and ultimately, union.  The Shringara Rasa theory shared across classical dance genres of India has already been detailed in earlier chapters. This aesthetic philosophy of love imbued with Bhakti, or devotion, is presented to a highly sophisticated and refined degree in the art of Odissi dance and the poetry that inspires it.

In my earlier article on Tanjore Gnyana (In Search of Gnyana, the Prettiest Dancer in Tanjore) I was concerned with making the case that certain pictorial and textual links had worked to associate a number of photographs, found at several archival sites, with the 19th-century Sadir dancer, Gnyana, who performed at the reception for the Prince of Wales at the Royapuram Station Hall in December 1875. In addition to this exercise, I provided some context and a number of passages from descriptions of the Royapuram event by reporters who were present on that occasion. Interested readers are therefore urged to consult that article before continuing here. In this article I reconstruct her biography from a number of oral sources, and present a full pictorial survey of her life.

Abstract

The ancient text Naṭyaśāstra remains to be the most referred text to understand the ancient concepts of Indian dance. Regarded as the most ancient text on dramaturgy (1st century B.C.E), the total theatre experience as mentioned by the author Bharata in his Naṭyaśāstra becomes an important reference point for all the classical dancers.
Knowing its relevance Naṭyaśāstra has been an integral part of the master’s syllabus of the dance course at Centre for Performing Arts, SPPU, Pune since the inception of the Centre. Though the text specializes in dramaturgy, it also brings out the essential principles of the classical dance forms on a conceptual level.
The following concepts --  1. Anga, Upānga (Primary and Subsidiary limbs of the body) 2. Śāriraja (Physical Expression excluding the face) and Mukhaja (Facial expression) 3.  Karaṇa –Angahāra (total body movements) 4) Nāyaka and Nāyikā (the male and female protagonists) 5) Lāsyānga (Intense emotional scenes of the female protagonist) are an important part of the training and repertoire of the classical dance forms – Kathak and Bharatanatyam which is taught at the Centre for Performing Arts. However, if we dig deeper, we realize that, on a conceptual level the classical dance forms of Kathak and Bharatanāṭyaṁ do follow the principles of the Naṭyaśāstra, but on an executional level they are quite different and unique. Amongst many reasons, the primary reason being Nāṭya or drama for Bharata is theatre and the delineation of Nṛtya or dance from Nāṭya/drama happened very clearly in the medieval period which resulted in the contemporary classical dance forms of Kathak and Bharatanatyam.
In contemporary India the students of Kathak and Bharatanatyam are constantly challenged in understanding the relevance of Naṭyaśāstra for their contemporary practice of classical dance forms and its repertoire.
The following paper takes the case study of the Master’s students of Centre for Performing Arts who have been studying the Naṭyaśāstra and post Naṭyaśāstra texts and will try to analyse how different strategies and pedagogical tools were adopted to make Naṭyaśāstra relevant for their present practice. The writer adopted two primary methods –
1) Use of Bollywood as an effective tool in making the students understand the concepts of Nāyaka/Male protagonist, Nāyikā /Female Protagonist and Lāsyānga-s/Intense Emotional Scenes of the female protagonist.
2) Focus on the parameters within which Naṭyaśāstra works and highlight other areas where it might not e.g. Contemporary dance, abstraction in dance etc.
The following paper will elucidate upon how different methods, pedagogical tools and strategies helped in making Naṭyaśāstra relevant for the contemporary students of Kathak and Bharatanatyam.

“Now, for objective adjustment in the physical world, Shiva propounded song, dance and instrumental music in such a manner so that it would directly vibrate the ectoplasm, so that the ectoplasmic movement converges into one point touching the soul point,” according to Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar”. “That is why great people of all ages have encouraged all three aspects of music.”  P. R. Sarkar, (1921-1990), was a spiritual guru in the tradition of Shiva and Krishna. He composed a collection of 5018 spiritual songs called Prabháta Saḿgiita, and founded the socio-spiritual movement Ananda Marga (“the Path of Bliss”).  –  Richard Gauthier, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California, USA, May 23, 2021.

This paper seeks to problematize the current state of Indian classical dance and its relation to religion in the Canada-based Indian diaspora, with a special focus on Toronto and Montreal. Using data from the early stages of my PhD ethnographic research, this essay contrasts text and practice to demonstrate that the current state of dance in the diaspora has evolved: while the “classical” norms of aesthetics and ideas about religion/spirituality that have been mobilized in the discourse about and practice of Bharatanātyam since the late 19th century still have some salience to this day, a new discourse and approach are emerging from this “ideal” state of dance, allowing performers not only to redefine their own practice in their changing socio-cultural environment, but also to decide for themselves whether their practice is spiritual/religious or not.

Gemeinschaftliche und individuelle Erfahrungen in den Bereichen der Kunst und der Religion werden oft als »unaussprechlich« erlebt und beschrieben, als unmittelbar und gleichzeitig, als schwankend und flüchtig. Sie überschreiten die Ordnung von Raum und Zeit – und sind doch bedingt durch die konkreten rituellen Dimensionen der Auf- und Ausführungen und des sinnlichen (aisthetischen) Erlebens. Die interdisziplinären Beiträge des Bandes widmen sich diesen Erfahrungen und ihren Repräsentationen in verschiedenen Medien wie z.B. Tanz, Musik und Film und fragen besonders nach transkulturellen Dimensionen. Zentrales Beispiel ist dabei die Schnittstelle zwischen Deutschland und Südasien.

The use of the classical dance form of bharatanatyam by Catholic Christians has inspired vigorous resistance from Hindus and Christians alike. The most salient of these objections relate to the use of power. Some see this form of ministry as a colonialist appropriation; others argue that it perpetuates caste and religious values that do not belong to the majority of Indian Christians, who are Dalits. While the Church may eventually abandon this form of ministry for such reasons, I argue that the case of Nav Sadhana Kala Kendra, a Catholic school of dance and music in Varanasi that produces dance programs on video disc and YouTube, subverts both forms of hegemony.

The present article (in English, summarised in Italian) begins with an overview of the ancient art of dance in India in its manifold aspects, moving onto its transformation – through the agency of international contacts – into new dance forms, in the period that preceded and followed India’s independence. The core of the essay then investigates how the new dance styles (although an intercultural product), came to be representative of Indian traditional cultural-artistic heritage, becoming a key aspect in making Independent India’s  identity.

IN :VOICES OF FREEDOM.  SOCIETY, CULTURE AND IDEAS IN THE 70TH YEAR OF INDIA’S INDEPENDENCE
http://www.scienzeelettere.it/book/50179.html

In this essay I explore the connections between the temple-originated dance traditions of Andhra Pradesh, the hermeneutics of rasa articulated in both Tantric and alamkara contexts, and the reflections on the danced-body by contemporary exponents of dance. This presentation reflects preliminary work on a larger book project on the embodied mysticism in Indian arts.  In that work I seek to adopt Timalsina’s challenge for an application of a Tantric hermeneutics to Indian culture, an approach that employs the interpretive logic of Tantra via a creative hermeneutics of Indian culture as that field in which the deeper meaning of the symbol is displayed and communally encoded through ritualization (Timalsina 2006).

Abstract
The premise of my doctoral research is to ask how sacred Hindu iconography in traditional Indian classical dance might translate to secular, feminist performance. Similar to a choreographic design, the practical creative work and the theoretical research engage in a ‘duet’ of movement back and forth, both sharing a strong gestural motif that reinforces the central theme of "sacred to secular", and "tradition as transgression”. The thesis will establish my relationship to Goddess Kali phenomena as my cultural milieu, both past and present, and situate my practice in the context of other global practitioners. Artists who demonstrate precedents of my practice include Indian choreographer and dancer, Chandralekha (b. 1928 - 2006), performance artists including American Carolee Schneeman (b. 1939), Japanese born Yoko Ono (b. 1933) and Serbian-born Marina Abramovic (b. 1946), as well as American photographic artist, Cindy Sherman (b. 1954) who all employ often confrontational and sometimes violent imagery in their work.
In tracing Kali from pre-colonial to postcolonial India, drawing on Indian scholar David R. Kinsley (b. 1939 - 2000), this thesis will explore the evolution of Kali iconography to embrace subjects beyond sacred ritual and tradition that challenge attitudes of racial stereotyping, identity, culture, and predominantly as protest to attitudes of female shame. Because the momentum of my practice addresses both feminist and intercultural theories, it draws on Indian scholarship such as the feminist, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (b. India 1942), activist Mala Sen (b. 1947-2011) and intercultural scholar Rustom Bharucha (b.1953) whose writing underpin the exegesis. An autoethnographic approach (Ellis, C et al., 2011, p.1) links the threads of the scholarly enquiry. The creative research, the performance work, Urban Kali, extends the concept of tradition as transgression, and explores the tensions between the sacred and the secular through what might be described as contemporary feminist intercultural performance. The research suggests that contemporary performance utilising traditional Kali iconography can transcend and subvert cultural significance to express and embody feminine identity.

«A Vedic Glance at La Bayadère».
[English abstract at the end of the article]
The paper analyses a philological reconstruction of the ballet (La Scala Theatre, Milan, 2006) and through a theorical and technical knowledge of Indian classical dance it supposes and tries to demonstrate that the choregrapher Marius Petipa was inspired by original Indian dance and movements in drawing his choreographies for La Bayadère (1877).

I templi dell'India meridionale presentano complessi programmi iconografici in cui molto spazio è dato alla danza. Nei rilievi così come nei dipinti o nelle figure isolate, troviamo la rappresentazione delle posizioni della danza, fino a raggiungere esempi come il tempio di Chidambaram nei cui portali monumentali campeggiano i 108 karana del Natya Shastra, le posizioni della danza. Questo gigantesco tempio del Tamil Nadu è dedicato a Shiva nella sua forma di Nataraja, re della danza. La complessa iconografia di questa divinità, emblema dell'eterno ciclo di creazione e distruzione degli universi nasconde importanti suggestioni mitiche e valenze sociali. La rappresentazione di Shiva Nataraja in preziose statue in bronzo è considerata la più alta forma di rappresentazione dell'attività divina che l'uomo abbia creato.

Exploring recent developments in Indian Classical Dance the article explores all kinds of issues including those related to the phenomenon of virtual transmission capsules and modules of workshop culture. Another version of this elaborate article was published recently in the Hindu.

Photography began to be popularized in India in the 1850s, and from that time photographic studies for various purposes, professional, commercial and official, began to be commissioned by a variety of instances. They were used for ethnographic purposes by early anthropologists and explorers, as well as by imperial agencies conducting a number of official surveys. In addition, by the 1860s a number of photographic studios were opened throughout India and individual court photographers were being hired in a professional capacity. By the 1870s photography had been established as the new and best way for pictorial documentation throughout the subcontinent. Until these decades, the documentation of South Indian dance had largely become the province of local Indian artists producing gouache and watercolour paintings in the Company School style.

As classical dancers and popular singers who occupy the public domain, the female protagonists in Narayan's The Guide (1958), Anita Desai's Journey to Ithaca (1995), and Salman Rushdie's The Ground beneath Her Feet (1999) appear to be empowered and liberated women in their own right. However, this does not preclude them from being subjected to various constraints imposed upon their subjectivities by the discursive operations of nationalism, patriarchy and capitalism. In both The Guide and Journey to Ithaca, the female practitioners of classical dancing, regardless of the fact that they occupy a public space, are made to conform to and represent the traditional identity of the Indian woman, while Vina in The Ground beneath Her Feet is made to embody a 'radical' sexual identity that is situated outside and in opposition to the conservative politics of the nationalist discourse as a 'radical' feminist subject. All three novels insist on foregrounding the ambivalences and nuances inherent within their subject positions by bringing into view the objectification and intense commodification of these female artists within the capitalist culture.

I am discussing recent burning issues related to the treatment of margam in terms of the content and form which will bring forth varying perspectives and my analysis of these perspectives . The following paper was presented in a seminar organised  by Smita Mahajan , Bharatanatyam dancer from Pune.

The following is my dissertation for M.A. dance submitted in the year 2000. It tries to understand concepts related to  Angika ( body lanuage/vocabulary) explained in the Natyasastra and post Natyasastra texts  and its ultimate evolution into the Angika of Bharatanatyam.

Nello specifico l’Abhinayadarpaṇa è un compendio del Bharatārṇava,
un’altra opera dedicata all’arte della danza e attribuita allo stesso
autore, Nandikeśvara. In alcune edizioni del nostro testo questa
tradizione è esemplificata da un dialogo introduttivo all’opera tra il dio
Indra e lo stesso Nandikeśvara: Indra, il re guerriero a capo degli dei,
si rivolge all’autore del Bharatārṇava al fine di ottenere un’esposizione
più sintetica di questa scienza.3.
In realtà l’Abhinayadarpaṇa si occupa di un aspetto particolare di
quest’arte della danza. L’Abhinayadarpaṇa è dedicato a un aspetto particolare di questa
complessa forma artistica. Darpaṇa significa “specchio” e l’opera di
Nandikeśvara è “lo specchio degli abhinaya”. Il termine darpaṇa è molto
comune nei titoli di opere letterarie in sanscrito e indica solitamente un
compendio di un testo molto più ampio. La stessa materia viene trattata
in modo più conciso. Per abhinaya invece si intende una tecnica di
rappresentazione suddivisa in quattro categorie. L’Abhinayadarpaṇa
si occupa in particolare del primo tipo di abhinaya. Abhinaya, dalla
radice abhi-nī, significa letteralmente “condurre verso” e consiste
nell’attività di trasmettere agli spettatori ciò che viene rappresentato sul
palcoscenico. L’abhinaya è lo strumento che consente allo spettatore
di comprendere ciò che è recitato, di partecipare alla rappresentazione:
si tratta dunque di una tecnica per creare un legame empatico tra ciò
che viene messo in scena e chi assiste allo spettacolo.

My text entitled Devotional Hindu Dance: A Return to the Sacred is now published with Palgrave MacMillan.  I felt called to pen this text to explain how the history of Hindu dance and colonization caused Hindu dance to move from sacred to a Westernized system that emphasizes culture.  I point to a postcolonial return to Hindu dance as a religious, sacred, devotional dance form while positioning Hindu dance in the Western culture in which I live.  This book is original because it focuses on Hindu dance based on its origin.  Many texts today discuss Hindu dance as a cultural dance form of India.  However, this text explains why Hindu dance is religious, how to engage in devotional Hindu dance, and how to negotiate the boundaries of religion and culture to position Hindu dance in the West.

This text is now available on Amazon. 

It is also available on the Palgrave MacMillan’s website. 

Thank you to all who contributed to the success of this text.

In her article "Towards a Framework of a Semiotics of Dance" Nicoleta Popa Blanariu constructs a framework of based on de Saussure's, Peirce's, and Barthes's thought. She applies Ferdinand de Saussure's concept of semiosis defined as a cultural system of conventions. In dance this occurs when choreographic signs are encoded, for example in magic, ritual, or religious expressions of movement. Further, Charles Sanders Peirce's concept of the role of "intelligent consciousness" is crucial for the engendering of signification and thus to dance. In dance, the choreographer "interprets" the world and by means of selection and interpretation, the choreographic sign reveals its object and this process is related to abstraction. In semiosis dance involves a process of "culturalization" (Barthes), whereby codes of dance represent the spontaneity of "natural" of movements and feelings within a repeatable system of expression. Last but not least, Edmund Husserl's notion that dance belongs to the domain of "pre-reflexivity" of signal and entails symbolic qualities derived from its embedding of cultural codes is employed by Popa Blanariu in her building a framework of the semiotics of dance.

This article examines the pictorial data associated with exhibitions of Indian dance in the Jardin d'Acclimatation in Paris in the first decade of the 20th century. It also analyses some important aspects of the presentation of these dancers in the context of the 'human zoos' or ethnic exhibitions that became popular in Europe from the late 19th century to the 1920s.

This Essay is my first international publication (Journal of Tamil Studies, 19, 1981) based on an MA Paper in partial completion of  the MA Indian Languages and Cultures at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, 1979.  'VIRALI' analyses and discusses more than 50 terms found in Tamil Bardic poetry for female performing artists in the private and public sphere of Tamil Society around the beginning and first centuries of our Common Era.
The orientation on primary sources is typical for the type of research practised until the 1980-ies when Classical Indology was abolished at large in The Netherlands.

The paper was presented in the "Ageing, Ageism, Cultures" conference held at Jadavpur University, Centre of Advanced Studies, under the UGC-CAS (phase III) programme, between 21st and 22nd of September, 2017.
It proposes to discuss the issue of ageism in Indian Classical Music and Dance.

The dancer represented in the three photographs with which I deal in this brief article remains unnamed, nor can we be sure as to the exact year in which she was photographed, probably in a photographic studio in Madras. Her case is representative of the general anonymity to which dancers in 19th-century India were consigned in most cases of pictorial representation.

In both the factual & the fictitious worlds of the Indian community, a Gender imbalance has been noted in the creation, and transmittance of Bharathanatyam. Identifying Bharathanatyam as one of the eight Classical dance forms of India, Kothari (2009) notes how they are based on a foundation in religion, and have devotional and mythological stories as their content. Therefore, Hindu mythology attributes the genesis of Bharathanatyam to the God Shiva, who assigns the Saint 'Bharatha Muni' the task of teaching the dance form to humans (Puri 2001). Bharatha Muni compiles the Classical treatise the 'Natya Shasthra' documenting the teaching of Bharathanatyam which is then passed onto male dance teachers by the name of 'Nattuvanars.' The Nattuvanars teach the art of Bharathanatyam to female dancers known as the 'Devadasis' who were offered to the Hindu temples at a young age to serve the invincible dynasty of Gods. Traditionally, the Devadasis or the 'servants of God' were ritually married to the Hindu Gods, and had to perform devotional dances within the precincts of Hindu temples (Gaston 2005). The description so far although arising from Hindu mythology, brings to the fore the notions of 'Ownership' and Gender within the art form of Bharathanatyam. The prevalence of a patriarchal stronghold within the practice of Bharathanatyam has therefore played a significant role in the Status of the practitioners of the dance form.