On 22 October 2026, Ramaa Bharadvaj presents an entertaining story-theatre piece which is told in her own unique style. We were interested to know how, as a professional classical dancer, Ramaa has developed her art to create AVATARANA: The Story of Natya.
Please tell us about the Natyashastra and how you use it in your show?
Indian theatre and dance practitioners narrate stories about divinity from epics and mythology. But the Arts themselves have a complex and colourful origin story, full of drama and action, magic and misfortunes. But how many people know about this story? As a performing artist, I decided I would tell this story of Performance Art itself.
This story comes from the Natyashastra, a 2500 year-old treatise on the performing arts attributed to sage Bharata – 6000 verses, 36 chapters. In my work “Avatarana”, I have adapted this mythic origin-story about the Arts, from the Natyashastra, and have given it an entertaining make-over.
The Natyashastra is not some dry technical manual, but an integrated science on dramaturgy, and beyond its technical grandeur, it is also esteemed as Veda, a sacred text of revealed knowledge. In 2025, UNESCO included the Natyashastra in its Memory of World Register, and this makes “Avatarana” more relevant for audiences of today.
You are an esteemed Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dancer, choreographer, and educator. Do you present Avatarana as a dance piece or something different?
Although my entire career has been as a classical dancer of Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, in Avatarana I have transitioned from a performer who used to define stories through dance, to a narratrix who defines dance through stories. So, AVATARANA is presented as a solo story-theatre in English, created in my own signature-style.
It is an organically developed style that reflects my decades of dance experience, my love for theatre, my passion for Indic knowledge, my script-writing skills, my sense of humour, and my background as a global citizen. (I lived and worked in USA for 31 years). I weave dramatic storytelling, dance, expressive theatre, original music, and humour with cultural insights in a distinctive style that is fun, and friendly, because I had a clear motto in mind, which was “to bring Indic wisdom to urban audiences”. This goal anchors me to the wisdom of the Vedic culture, yet keeps me connected to the community in which I live today.
Classical dance uses a specific language of gestures. Unless we know their usages, we get lost sometimes. But in my format – you can enjoy every second because we are linguistically connected. ‘Hasta’* gestures are used not as main medium of language but rather as adjectives that colour the oral.
The super reviews of your show always remark on your witty and humourous delivery. Did you find a different skill was needed to use spoken word instead of humour through dance movements?
Even my choreographies based on classical dance always had a humourous edge to them. My story-theatre style is just an expansion of that.
When I embarked on it, my aim was to create a LIT experience for the audience, which stands for Laugh, Imagine and Think.
So, I was clear that humour was going to be a big part of it. In mimetic performance, however, physical humour is predominant. But, in narrative performance, this needs to be tamed. Otherwise it can take on a slapstick quality. Instead, the focus is on punchlines and dialogues, with emphasis on pronunciation, punctuation, intonation, projection etc. And my style being a combination of both theatre and storytelling, a certain amount of spontaneity had to be factored in too.
Natyashastra itself teaches that when Brahma created Theatre Arts, he proclaimed that it would counsel humans in matters of worldly life by being the instrument of enjoyment. And that’s what my Avatarana does also. It educates white it entertains.
AVATARANA is Thursday 22 October, 6.30pm at Midlands Arts Centre.
* Hand postures used to denote various thoughts, ideas and objects