Dance

Music and dance have been part of the life of people of the Tamil country long before history was written. Tholkkpaiyam (500 BC – 200AD), a text of Tamil grammar and poetics mentions dance in many places.

The Tamil epic Silappadikkaram (500 AD) deals with the arts of dance and music and provides some examples. The story is that of a loyal house wife whose husband Kovalan has an affair with the dancer Madhavi but comes back to his wife. Madhavi’s royal award winning performance is described in detail in the epic.

The ancient Tamils called both dance and drama Koothu. Dancers and theatre persons were called Koothar. Dances were classified according to the space they were danced in:
A) Dances performed as a ritual in the temple precincts.
B) Dances performed for the Kings in the court.
C) Dances performed for important people in small assemblies.
D) Dances performed for social occasions like weddings and other celebrations.
E) Dances performed by the community as a ritual in the fields and in life cycle rituals and in festivals outside the temple.

Rituals and religion: the Devadasis

Dance has always had a special life in the life of Tamils. Ritual and celebration always included dance. A practice in the medieval ages was that of the Devadasi system. The dance in the temples as a ritual was performed by the specially trained Devadasis or servants of God. These were young girls who were dedicated to the temple and were married to the God in a ritual. They were not allowed a regular family life but were highly trained in music and dance which was denied to women of the kitchen. The role of the Devadasi was to dance in the temple as a part of the ritual of worship. The temple gave them housing and land and a regular income. Because of their proximity to temples, their education, their sexuality and the fact that they were married to the God and not a mortal human being in the regular manner, the Devadasis were considered auspicious and were invited to take part in the life cycle rituals of households. Many Devadasi’s were chosen as companions by some dignitaries of the society. The Devadasis bore them children. These children took on their mother’s name and had no right to the name or inheritance from the father. Society accepted this arrangement as a legitimate one. The Devadasis were held in awe by the society for their knowledge and art. The male children became dance teachers and Nattuvanars (conducting a performance with hand held cymbals and reciting the Sollukkattus (dance syllables). The dance of the Devadasi was called Dasi attam or Chinna Melam or Sadir . In the beautiful Natya-Mandapas (dance-halls) of the magnificent temples, the Devadasis used to perform ritual dances as votive offerings to the presiding Deities.

The Devadasi system was abolished during the British rule of India through the efforts of Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, a pioneering Indian medical doctor and a social activist. Her western education and her social activism made her flinch at the practice of dedicating young girls to the temple. She felt the girls had to have had some choice to pursue any profession. She founded educational institutions and homes for poor women who had no access to education.

Origins and development of Bharathanatyam

Sadir dance became Bharathanatyam (though the word Bharathanatyam appears in 14th century poems) through the efforts of people like Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904-1986, left) who founded the institution Kalakshetra in 1936 for the teaching and practice of dance, and E.Krishna Iyer who brought the dance to the centre of art events at The Music Academy (1928). The dance then became democratic and became available to whoever was interested in learning it and is now not hereditary or confined to a particular community. There is a major debate running whether this has helped the dance or has ruined it with dilution. The debate is also about whether the abolition of the Devadasi system has made the Brahmins (the upper cast of the Hindu religion) appropriate the art of the Devadasi.

Bharathanatyam, the dance of the Tamils has now become pan Indian and has spread around the world transcending language and region.

Dance forms in Tamil Nadu

There are many forms of dance in Tamil Nadu. The dance inside the temples was Dasiattam or sadir and was normally a solo form unless a dance drama was specially commissioned while dances outside were ritualistic in propitiating nature and the Gods that represent them and community oriented with groups of men and women dancing them. The Kavadi, the Devarattam, Oyilattam, the Karagam and Poikkal Kudirai are danced in social and religious occasions in the villages. Some forms like the Devarattam are very abstract in nature and can teach the modern dancer quite a few things. They are not spontaneous as generally believed but require long years of training. Kummi dance is the dance of women and young girls with clapping hands danced in circles around the pot of new rice during the Pongal festivities celebrating the new harvest in January.

Contemporary dance artists and dance education

The classical dance of Bharathanatyam has gained respectability in the world art arena and Bharathanatyam dancers like Alarmel Valli, Malavika Sarukkai and Priyadarsini Govind are presented in most important festivals of dance around the world. Many dancers who perform in India do it as a hobby and have to spend much of their own money to present themselves. Many draw a good crowd if the family they come from have good connections and a good social status. But few of them go on to become professional artists able to make a decent living from the art form. Dance requires a great deal of investment of time, energy and money. Hence many artists are from the upper class of society. The Devadasis had a permanent income from the temples and the lands allotted to them so they could be dancers full time. But dancers like Alarmel Valli, Malavika Sarukkai and Priyadarsini Govind, the top three dancers of today in Bharathanatyam in Tamilnadu have had to struggle a great deal to make it where they are now.

The dance institution Kalakshetra has trained several dance teachers and they have spread all over India teaching young Indian girls and boys who mostly take it as a past time apart from their other studies.



Kalakshetra has created the great Ramayana dance compositions and they are a treat to watch even today especially in the beautiful theatre at Kalakshetra in the south of Chennai. Kalakshetra provides a diploma in dance and music after a four year study. The University of Madras has just instituted M.A.in performing arts. There are government colleges of music and dance in the different cities including Chennai where a diploma is given after a four year study. Many celebrity dancers have however studied dance part time while pursuing other educational qualifications like commerce, English literature or management.


Dance education has mainly been with the different families carrying style names with the place of the family origin like Pandanallur style, Tanjavur style, Vazhuvur style etc. The male members of the Devadasi families became dance teachers. Many creative dancers learnt from these teachers and adapted them to suit their audiences and presentation forums and students.

Teachers and present dancers

Rukmini Devi Arundale learnt from Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai and created an institutional atmosphere with a clear curriculum and examination etc and is accused of sanitizing, sanskritising and bringing in too much formality into the dance. Padma Subramaniam learnt from Kausalya and Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai and created her own style which she calls
Bharathanrityam
.
Chitra Visweswaran also learnt from Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai and has created her own style. So has Alarmel Valli who learnt from Chokkalingam Pillai and Subbaraya Pillai of Pandanallur school.

T.Balasaraswathy, the great star from the Devadasi tradition who took the move of the dance from private chamber performances to prime stages around the world with ease was the shining jewel of the Tanjavur tradition.

There are some gems of dance pieces that have stood the test of time like the great varnams and swarajatis in the different ragas. They were composed by the Devadasis and Nattuvanars and are heavy and in depth in their delineation of the subject which is mostly the feelings of a heroine calling out to her friend to unite her with her lover who is the presiding deity of a temple. .

Bharathanyam and Western dance forms

The basic difference between western classical dance and Bharathanatyam is in the challenge posed to the dancer. While the western classical dancer faces the challenge of moving away from the earth and creating sculptures in the air trying to conquer the forces of gravity and space, the Bharathanatyam dancer is rooted to the ground and uses the earth as a partner in dance, in fact as nature is perceived as the manifestation of the divine in Hinduism, so does the dancer recognize the divinity of mother earth by first acknowledging it by offering obeisance to her. Many dancers keep a figure of dancing Nataraja as a reminder of the times when dance was a ritual offering to the Gods in the temples. But often it becomes a decoration on stage.

Many western dancers have been inspired by Bharathanatyam. In the early days it was Ruth St.Dennis who danced the oriental dances and took the west by storm.

Our own Uday Shankar was inspired by the western large choreographies and presentations and created great dances with many dancers.

Rukmini Devi Arundale was inspired by group presentations of traditional Bhagavatha Mela but her stage presentations had lighting and other arrangements with western experts as consultants.

Chandralekha (1929-2006, above) brought a different dimension to choreography by looking further than the themes popularized in the last two centuries and also looked at space and time in innovative ways while presenting classical technique. She also brought in other movement techniques like Kalaripayattu into her choreographies.

Many young intelligent dancers are looking for new expressions with the explosion of the presentation arena for the dance from Tamilnadu while more of them are also looking to explore the roots as deep as they can go at the same time reaching for the sky with the expanding horizon.

The author: V.R. Devika, cultural activist, writer and editor, dance specialist, introduces you to the dance scene in Chennai, its traditions and its present state.