Dancers at Home

Late last year, recent graduate of Literature and Performing Arts from Ashoka University, Chennai-based Kavya Ganesh, a Bharatanatyam dancer-choreographer, inaugurated Shambhavi Soirees with an event interestingly titled, Two Way Mirror.

Ganesh didn’t have to look too far for a venue. The terrace of her independent house, in a residential neighbourhood in Chennai, that has been home to 21-year-old Ganesh’s own dancing journey since she was in Class 5, became the address for Shambhavi Soirees. “I didn’t want to do up the space,” she says, “I just added a black backdrop and bought a few plastic chairs for the elders who may come to the events.”

The inaugural soirees that showcased a performance by Apoorva Jayaraman, a Bharatanatyam artist who divides her time between Chennai and Bengaluru, was curated by Ganesh to focus on both a dancer, the viewer and their responses.

For an hour after Jayaraman’s performance, the two observers, Bharatanatyam dancer Divya Nayar and Ganesh’s classmate, Dhriti Bhat, with no prior knowledge of dance, shared their interpretation on the dance, and in doing so, the event became more than a mere performance. It was inclusive, diverse and without trying too hard, the artist and the audience came a little closer to each other.

“To be honest,” says Ganesh, “for years now, I’ve been wanting to see new things in dance that are collaborative, explorative and experimental in nature. All the events I’ve curated so far and will do so in future, stem from my own identity as a dancer and all the things that I wish I could see or do as a dancer. The idea therefore is for Shambhavi Soirees to not only become a space for artists to create and share their dance with each other but also allow for real, intimate con­versations to unfold in a way that enables audience members closer access to an artist’s process and imagination.”

Like Kavya Ganesh, dancers across south India are not merely giving voice and expression to their curatorial ideas but are als0 opening up their homes for the magic of these possibilities to unfurl in ways that are intimate and informal, honest and interactive.

“I think home performances are ways for audiences to watch an artist at close quarters,” says Anita Ratnam, dancer, curator, producer, presenter, and in her own words, a “cultural sherpa”, “It’s really a way to also humanise the artist.”

As the founder of Narthaki, Ratnam has worn the producer and curator’s hat for decades now. Under the umbrella of the Narthaki Studio Series, which she formally reinstated two years ago, Ratnam has curated and played host to nearly six varied chamber concerts in her home studio. “I choose artists whose works interest me and I present them as professionally as pos­sible,” she says, “The artists are compensated; they have access to tech and lighting and for audiences, all of whom have to pay a flat fee of `250 for entry, there are chairs and refreshments.”

Ratnam’s independent bungalow on Chennai’s Cenotaph Road is nearly 60 years old and her home series is also an ode to the legacy of her parents, who ensured their home was always open for artistic creation, practice and showcase.

Ratnam says home concerts celebrate the idea of “sharing” rather than a performance. “The entire experience has to have a quality of quietude; both the artist and the audience recognise that this is a home. In the middle of a performance, you could hear the dogs bark, the sound of a bus passing by, birds chirping, and the overall frenetic nature of a city… it’s important to flow with it.”

For an artist too, the beauty of an intimate home performance is the possibility of connecting with an audience in a manner that they see the human in the dancer. Early last year, as part of the debut edition of Kourtyard Kacheri, a series of home con­certs curated by dancer and entrepreneur, Kiranmayee Madupu and her dancer-friend, Srilekhya Karamchati, Chennai-based Divya Nayar travelled to Hyderabad with a set that she knew was going to flow in many directions. “Because the audi­ence was eclectic, I chose to perform a few Nritta pieces to orient them with the language of Bharatanatyam and because it was in Telugu land, I picked a Padam that was in Telugu so there was a sense of familiarity,” she says. As the evening unfolded, Nayar says, the audience warmed up to her and to the dance; requests came by, a pregnant woman in the audience wanted her to dance some­thing for her unborn child, someone wanted a ghazal and Nayar says she loved going with the flow.

The co-founders of Kourtyard Kacheri let the idea simmer and evolve before giving it shape and form as a performance series in people’s homes, every quarter. “You see as a dancer,” Madupu says, speaking on behalf of her partner as well, “I recognise the dire need for patrons in the arts.”

Kourtyard Kacheris is thus an attempt to also cultivate those in the audience who might be willing to also contribute resourc­es to the arts in the form of their homes and logistics, staff and support. “The affluent in Hyderabad are proud of their homes and are conscious of aesthetics,” Madupu says, “In opening up their homes and in aligning the aesthetics to the art form that is being presented and in inviting an audience that is willing to pay a premium price—in the form of a ticket—for a well-curated ex­perience of the arts, and all that unfolds after, I believe we are also slowly, and surely, cultivating connoisseurs for the classical arts.” Speaking of impact, Chennai-based Laasya Narasimhachari, a Kuchipudi artist, who is the daughter and disciple of the famed Kuchipudi artists-duo, The Narasimhacharis, believes that her initiative Rasoham, doesn’t belong to just “one person.” “A lot of us in this city are thinking of ways in which that small space that exists between an artist and an audience can be filled. The availability of more space—both physical and ab­stract—means more art can be fitted in.”

In December 2023, Narasimhachari curated a one-of-a-kind Kutty Kutcheri Festival under the aegis of Rasoham, that showcased a host of eclectic performanc­es—not limited to the classical—that travelled across small spaces in Chennai, reinforcing her premise that the arts belongs to “everyone who believe in it”.

That is how Bengaluru-based Living Room Kutcheri found its way into people’s hearts. Even though it was in the house of musician Gurupriya and Akhil Atreya, in less than six months the initiative became a community event—the LRK House. Living Room Kutcheri was Gurupriya’s way to remember her mother—a doctor, philanthropist, popularly known as the “Two Rupees Doctor” who treated patients with a rare generosity, and who died a decade ago.

For the first edition, Gurupriya invited musician Vedanth Bharadwaj to perform and before she knew it, she was already booked for the next six months. “My mother was also a musician and our house, back in the day, always nourished the arts. So, when I began Living Room Kutcheri, people showed up and took over; choosing to help with moving the furniture around, helping with décor, taking over the kitchen… the eve­ning of a performance, our home became everyone’s home and I can’t even describe that magic,” Gurupriya says.

In Chennai, Narasimhachari’s studio space, housed in her 55-year-old childhood home, throbs with an energy nourished by art forms, artists and diverse audiences from a cross-section of society, over decades. When she decided to curate The Art Room Series, armed with conviction that art that is meaning­ful and relevant to society, needed to be shared, she added a storeroom to the 1,000 sq ft studio space. In that space, she re-framed the mirror her parents used. The mirror not only holds sentimental value and is a reminder of the story of continuity but is also a metaphor for the notion of reflection. “Every artist who shares their work here, looks into this mirror, and what happens in the studio is a reflection of their art.”

In the context of reflection, Bharatanatyam and Mohiniyattam artist, Meera Krishnamurthy’s Art on the Terrace in Chennai’s Besant Nagar, is a space for artists, young and old, experienced and aspiring, to “share their reflective state through their artistic expressions”. Krishnamurthy set up Art on the Terrace as an extension of her own practice space, and the venue has become a haven for organic artistic experiences that reiterate the importance of artistic process in the backdrop of nature. “My intent is to build quiet,” Krishnamurthy says, “I want people to hear the beat of their own heart; to feel the nature around them and their art within.”

She says she is inundated with requests from artists to perform here but she believes Art on the Terrace is not merely a venue but a space for artists to also deliberate upon their art, ask pertinent questions about why they are doing what they are doing and do that in the company of an audience, no matter the size, that is involved, and committed to watching work that is brilliant, but also ordinary. “After all, an artist’s work is the culmi­nation of their journey and I want for experiences here to make that possible,” Krishnamurthy says.

Similarly Vidhya Subramanian is gearing up to open her home-studio that she built two years ago on the East Coast Road in Chennai, for performances by artists, who feel assured by its informality and warmth. “Under the umbrella of my new venture, Sparsha, I’m hoping to curate events where artists have the freedom to share work and get feedback in a space that is devoid of any sort of judgement,” says Subramanian, who is keen for her home-studio to also become a centre for the creation and incubation of art.

Coinciding with the 40th year of her Arangetram, and com­mitted to creating a space that is at the intersection of dance, music, theatre, folk arts, storytelling, Subramanian believes there is a need for spaces that look at the idea of “process” more deeply.

For New York-based Kuchipudi artist, Yamini Kalluri, who performed in the latest edition of Kourtyard Kacheri earlier this year, the possibility of a home concert for an audience uniniti­ated into the art form feels like “wine tasting, except in this case, it is dance and music.” She says, “I see my role as also someone who is training the audiences by getting them to understand the context of the choreographies, my own dance process, the theme, and the political climate. But over and above all, these performances in the comfort of a home, are also opportunities for us, artists to be more vulnerable and in doing that, we hope to build a relationship with them.”

Akshiti Roy ChowdhuryApoorva JayaramandanceKavya GaneshKourtyard Kacheriprofessional performanceRasohamShambhavi Soirees