It was used for diplomacy and also a kind of cultural conquest. Bharatanatyam would have been a part of these exchanges, too. Ganesh explains that the exchange of dance forms was probably an active method of communication between royalties. She believes that this interdisciplinary approach is inevitable due to the rich multicultural and interdisciplinary nature of Bharatanatyam itself. “Art changed with political shifts of the time.” Ganesh makes her arguments by using textual traditions, but also sculptures and paintings of that represent practices of Bharatanatyam of that era. “What was astounding was how these cultures (the Mughal/Islamic and the Deccan/Hindu) merged,” she says. Many of these practices had clear Persian influences.

However, in the course of her research, Ganesh found that the Nayak court’s contribution to contemporary Bharatanatyam was immense she recovered nearly thirty-four repertoires from this immediate past.

This time is traditionally considered “a period of decline for Bharatanatyam”. What could they have really contributed?’” The Nayak rulers of Vijayanagara were contemporaries of the medieval Mughal rulers. “At first I thought, ‘They ruled the Tamil country for two hundred-odd years. Ganesh’s interest in dance history had been there for as long as she performed, but it was when she was working on her Master’s in Bharatanatyam that she stumbled on the lost repertoires of the Nayak era. “A Peek Inside the Attic”, as the lecture-demonstration at Ashoka University was aptly titled, provided a taste of these sessions to the attendees. Currently, Ganesh is engaged in the project “From the Attic”, a series of performance-projections that draws from her academic work to bring to light the evolutionary and changing nature of Bharatanatyam over the years. Her research into dance history focuses on reconstructing lost Bharatanatyam practices and repertoires. Swarnamalya Ganesh is a known Sadir (Bharatanatyam) dancer, dance historian, choreographer, and tutor. Official poster for the lecture-demonstration

Oh my lovely lalana raagam