Bharatha Natyam-What Are You?

Let me tell you a story. I grew up in the cultural city of Madras, where I learned bharatha natyam, a form of South Indian classical dance, from a very young age. My dance teachers told me a story, a story they were never tired of repeating. They told me that bharatha natyam traces its origins to the Natyashastra, a detailed, ancient text on dramaturgy authored by the sage Bharatha (Bharatha-Muni), ca. 300 B.C. Sitting at their feet, I listened in wide-eyed awe. They told me that this dance was once called sadir and that it was performed in the sacred precincts of the temple. They said that the devadasi (temple dancers) who practiced this art form lived and danced happily in the temple environments. I nodded my head in agreement. But then the devadasi turned and profaned the art form, they said suddenly, and rather angrily. Frightened by their anger, I asked rather hesitantly about how they had profaned the art. They looked around them to see if anybody was eavesdropping, and whispered into my ear: they said that dancing became associated with nautch girls because of the corrupt ways of the devadasi. Their personal life, reflected in the art form, expressed itself in the crude and literal language of the nautch girl. I did not understand anything they said. I was too young and frightened. A highly complex system rooted in religion had become corrupted till the respectable people of the south initiated a campaign in the late 1920s to abolish the ill-reputed devadasi system. What about the dance then, I interjected? They smiled benevolently at my anxiety and said that important cultural institutions, such as the Music Academy in