Article - The return of Nāṭya Art, Memory, and the Long Rhythm of a Civilisation - Rohit Viswanath

At the great temple of Bṛhadiśvara in Thanjavur, the stone speaks in an administrative voice. It records land grants, duties, and allocations. Among these, it notes the presence of hundreds of women attached to the temple, trained in music and dance, and sustained through a carefully organised system of patronage. They are not incidental figures. They belong to the structure of the place.

Further north, at the Virūpākṣa temple at Hampi, inscriptions from the Vijayanagara period record similar arrangements, including endowments for dancers, musicians, and ritual specialists. The language is consistent across centuries. Performance is accounted for, maintained, and institutionalised.

From a modern vantage, these records can appear as remnants of a lost world, evidence of a tradition that flourished, declined, and was later revived. But this reading carries a familiar assumption that history moves in a straight line.

Nāṭya does not quite follow that line. Its movement is cyclical, recursive, and responsive to shifts in the conditions that sustain it.

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Anita says...April 2026

In the shadow of a brutal war still continuing in the Middle East and its consequences spreading across the globe, I share my monthly musings. To be honest, it feels strange to talk about "dance", "performance", "culture" and the Arts when all we see and read is more and more bloodshed and devastation in the news cycles. And to think that I transited through the now damaged Dubai airport on my way home from South America barely 4 days before the mayhem began!

My personal thoughts about the value of the live arts in the current "theatre of war" seem almost puerile against the bombardment of heritage buildings and precious architecture that we are seeing crumble before our eyes. Perhaps this is the very contradiction that should be a sobering reminder of what really matters in our lives.

March started with a flood of dance performances. It felt like a wave of excess after my sabbatical in February. For eyes like mine, who have seen so many performances across the world for 50 years, it needs something very special to make me focus and sit up.

Fortunately, some dancers did make me smile in admiration. 

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Article - The city stands tall - Yazhini SP

What kind of people make sense in stories? I wish to show the ideologies that dominate this purely aesthetic question, show rasa itself as complicit, and argue for the stage as a place exempt from such governance, where people and their interiority are valued as material, risk is valued as an aesthetic event, and unmediated audience perception is valued as the foundational condition of art.

What kinds of people "make sense" in stories?

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Tribute - My Jayanthi Akka - Anil Srinivasan

(A special exclusive article for Narthaki by Pianist and Educator Anil Srinivasan on Jayanthi Kumaresh being selected for the SANGITA KALANIDHI title by Madras Music Academy.)

There are moments in the life of a musician when the world gets something exactly right. This is one of them.

When I heard that Jayanthi Kumaresh had been chosen for the Sangita Kalanidhi — the highest honour our classical tradition bestows — I felt something that is hard to describe without sounding sentimental. It wasn't surprise. It was the deep satisfaction of the inevitable, finally arriving.

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Article - How emotions evolve in a changing world - Shreya Kumar Gopal Rao

Emotion is something that comes naturally to humans, a form of expression to voice our thoughts, ideas, and desires. But when it becomes something that you have to control, it begins to feel uncomfortable.

In Bharatanatyam, abhinaya forces us to experience and visualize emotions from perspectives we may have never considered before, and it's an odd feeling. In a generation that reacts first and then reflects, it shows how emotionally undertrained we are. Sure, we caption heartbreak, we constantly upload our highs and lows, and we curate vulnerability. But is that form of expression really the same as understanding emotion? 

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Anita says...March 2026

February has been a very special month for me personally. A trip of a lifetime with my favourite sibling, the mountains and rivers singing into my ears every night, fresh food being harvested before my eyes by the gentle and spiritual Andean people, the contrasting energies of the larger than life spectacle of the Rio Carnival - dancing in the streets and foot tapping rhythms around every corner. What better way to disengage and recharge than to travel. To savour the lives and rhythms of people far away from my homeland and yet connected through the elements of the sun, moon, water and wind. To re-enter my own inner world by observing the habits and customs of another culture half a world away. To return feeling chastened by the common threads and eternally grateful for the magnificent planet we inhabit.

AND

To not wear any make up, Kajal, lipstick or worry about my hair for weeks. Just moisturiser, sun screen, a hat and a big smile! Only a dancer will know what a joy that is!

So this month, I will not talk about dance in the expected ways. Instead, I will share my thoughts of my recent travel and experiences that were full of colour, movement and energy. To put out there the ideas of rest, recharge, reboot, review, renew and revisit our lives and art. 

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Article - The future of the Sabha lies in differentiation - Rohit Viswanath

Why artistes must rediscover their svadharma and build their own assemblies.

ach December, as the Margazhi season gathers force across Chennai, an old argument returns with predictable intensity: should dancers pay to perform? For some, the very notion undermines the dignity of art. For others, it is a practical exchange: a fee for infrastructure, visibility, and documentation in an increasingly crowded field.

The debate often hardens into a moral binary. Either one defends artistic purity, or one capitulates to commodification. Yet this framing obscures a deeper structural issue. The real crisis is not 'pay to perform.' It is that we no longer have clarity about what a Sabha is, nor about what it is meant to do.

The Sabha as Assembly, not Rental
Historically, the Chennai Sabha was more than a performance venue. It was an assembly; a gathering shaped by shared aesthetic literacy, discernment, and accountability. A performance under a respected banner signaled not merely stage access but entry into a cultural conversation.

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