The report by the Justice Hema Committee—born from the Women in Cinema Collective’s struggle following the 2017 case in which a well-known actress was kidnapped by five men and assaulted in a moving car before being released— recently made available in the public domain, is like a stone thrown into the still waters of Kerala’s film industry. A small crack in the surface that is spreading spider-like into the very heart of things. It reveals what has always been there, beneath the polished exterior: the wounds, deep and unhealed, of power and gender imbalances, festering quietly for years. The report is sending ripples across India’s cinematic landscape. It is forcing other industries to confront their own buried truths, to examine the stories that women carry within their bodies.

It is against the backdrop of this movement that I speak to Dr. Neena Prasad who is preparing for her troupe’s performance at the NCPA’s Nakshatra Dance Festival. We speak of the strength and resilience of these women before she explains how her Mohiniattam piece for the upcoming edition of the festival, which showcases group choreographies, is a tribute to one such woman whose courage and grit carved a path through the shadows of history. Kuriyedathu Thatri, a young Namboodiri woman from Kerala who lived in the early part of the 20th century, and who faced Smarthavicharam—a castebased trial for adultery— is at the crux of Prasad’s performance. Thatri’s trial had once shocked the core of the patriarchal and misogynistic society of her time, marking her as one of the earliest feminists in Kerala. In her defiance, in her refusal to bow in shame, she cracked open something far larger than her own particular situation. And for Prasad, Thatri’s story is as old as time itself. 

The Story of Kuriyedathu Thatri promises to be a conversation with women of yesterday and today, an embodiment of the body as a site of memory and transformation. What does it mean to reclaim the body’s narrative in an era still confronting its buried truths? It seeks to unravel the complexities of Thatri’s story by introducing elements of mythology. In Prasad’s dance production, for instance, Thatri is obsessed with Keechaka, the commander-in-chief of the Matsya kingdom—a character whose appearance and role in the narrative adds layers of intrigue and conflict. “Thatri doesn’t want Keechaka to remove his make-up, and that intrigues me. When it comes to love, what is moral and what is not?” asks Prasad. She confronts these questions head-on, using the language of Mohiniattam and blending the historical with the personal, the traditional with the contemporary. She explores morality and the body—and what it means to seek truth and authenticity in a world where appearances are constantly manipulated. In every movement, there is a question: Can power and grace be taken back? Or does it leave a scar of the battles fought long before the stage was set?

The NCPA Nakshatra Dance Festival celebrates the spectrum of classical and contemporary dance, offering a stage for innovative and transformative performances. This year, many performances will raise questions on how our bodies—both as performers and observers—bear witness to the struggles and triumphs of our stories. How do we carry the weight of our stories in our bones, our skin, our breath? Where do our personal narratives end and the collective ones begin?

It is this delicate exchange of past and present, tradition and reinvention, that Santosh Nair’s The Game of Dice manifests. In his choreography, the forms of Chhau and Kathakali intertwine with contemporary dance to tell stories from the epic, albeit filtered through modern sensibilities.

“The story is my hero,” Nair says. And the Mahabharata serves as his canvas. “Everything about the Mahabharata is so layered. The fact that I had the three forms [of dance] to explore was of immense help to me and to the narrative of the production. My training in Kathakali shaped my portrayal of Shakuni, while Mayurbhanj Chhau naturally suited the Pandavas. Meanwhile, contemporary dance illuminated our unique interpretations of emotions and situations,” he explains.

Behind the scenes, Nair and his troupe wrestled with the challenge of presenting the dice game, a scene well-trodden in the annals of dance and theatre, in a fresh and engaging light. “There’s always a desire to present something differently. We experimented, rejected and reworked many elements—the music, costumes, masks, movements—all to give it a new look and feel,” he recounts, hinting that the process was a dance of its own.

In The Game of Dice, Nair navigates the balance between mythological reverence and contemporary relevance which call for meticulous effort and creative risk-taking. Through his approach, Nair not only honours the ancient text but also redefines it, helping make its themes resonate with a new generation of audiences. “I continue to emphasise this: what you are portraying needs complete clarity. You then venture into improvisation. You question your choice of movement, expression, etc. in that process. Why are you doing what you are doing? Does it help express the character or the plot better? It is not about replicating the inherited structure of the dance form. It requires the artistes to go deep into their character and what they are emoting, and keep improvising, till they get it right. You are not showing Kathakali, Chhau or contemporary dance there, you are drawing from them. You are showcasing a strong plot with equally strong characters and that’s what the audience needs to be engaged with.”

Meanwhile, the husband-wife dance duo Nirupama & Rajendra’s Bahurang touches on the tension between power and grace inherent in classical dance, echoing broader philosophical questions about the body’s role in performance. Is the body simply a vehicle for technique, or does it contain a history, a memory of its own? Can a dancer truly transcend form, or is the body always already inscribed with the limitations and possibilities of tradition?

‘Laya-Laasya’, ‘Rasalila’, ‘No Strings Attached’ and ‘Bahurang’—reimagines Kathak without losing the essence of its roots. “Our idea is to invoke and share that joy and sublimity which we experience with the audiences. Our dances are crafted to appeal to the sense of inner beauty in all,” says Nirupama. With 14 highly trained Kathak dancers from the duo’s Abhinava Dance Company, each sequence is a vivid exploration of emotion and energy, from the divine love of Radha and Krishna in ‘Rasalila’ to the powerful interplay of Uddhata (Power) and Sukumaara (Grace) in ‘LayaLaasya’. But how do we reconcile the ancient with the modern? Nirupama’s answer is found in the duo’s collaboration with violinist Dr. Mysore Manjunath for ‘No Strings Attached’, an elegant fusion of Kathak with Carnatic music. “We have tried to bring classical dance closer to present-day audiences with creative use of technology,” she says. The final piece, ‘Bahurang’, an exuberant celebration of colours, promises a high-energy conclusion in which traditional Kathak rhythms meet modern technological soundscapes. This seamless blending of tradition with innovation poses

Their production, a compilation of four sequences—the question: Can the past and the present exist in harmony, or are they perpetually at odds? 

As we ponder this, Kumudini Lakhia’s Kadamb Centre for Dance is preparing to present Atah Kim, meaning ‘Where do we go from here?’, which beckons us to consider another dimension of this dialogue. The performance challenges the boundaries of the classical form, creating a space where history and innovation converge. As Lakhia puts it, “The empty space stares at me, yet I see it charged with dormant energy waiting to take form.”

Is the body ever free from its historical framework, or does it constantly search for new patterns within its traditional structure? Atah Kim explores this tension, with dancers finding freedom within the form’s boundaries. “The search for dance in one’s body is ever alive. The vocabulary of Kathak has innumerable patterns of movements which are very lyrical, at times slow, at times crisp. The structure of the dance is based on many different tala systems. A rhythmic composition ends on the sam, often the first beat of a tala with a still position, thereby forming a static pose,” explains Lakhia, adding, “The entire physical format of Kathak is designed around a continuous realisation of how far we have come and how much further there is to go.”

Lakhia’s choreography, rooted in the rhythmic cycles of Kathak, offers lyrical moments where stillness becomes movement, and movement returns to stillness, like a conversation between time and space. “Kathak is a choreographer’s delight,” she says, “Its structures and variations always leave room for exploration. It has been a pleasure to work in this production to see Kathak flowing through empty space and creating a sense of divinity.”

At the heart of Nakshatra lies the exploration of timeless tradition in tandem with contemporary evolution, making it the ideal space for performances like Shama Bhate’s Samanvaya and Geeta Chandran’s Pravahati. With its deep roots in classical Kathak, Samanvaya asks: Can the essence of ancient traditions truly be preserved when they are reinterpreted through the lens of modernity, or is this reinterpretation inherently a form of erasure? Bhate, a stalwart of the Kathak tradition, offers no easy answers. Her choreography stands at the crossroads of the ageless wisdom of our past and the relentless march of technological progress. Dancers from her institute Nadroop oscillate between two worlds, embodying the very essence of Bhate’s question: How do we honour the tradition we carry, while embracing the future that calls us? 

Pravahati, by contrast, is a force of forward momentum. Chandran’s Bharatanatyam performance with the Natya Vriksha Dance Collective is an artistic inquiry into time, space and movement. Chandran reimagines Bharatanatyam’s classical rigour, infusing it with contemporary sensibilities without losing its spirit. As she weaves through Shiva’s divine dance, the monsoon rhythms of Kalidasa’s poetry, and the echo of internal reflection, we are invited to ask: Is tradition static, or is it a living, breathing entity, capable of morphing and reflecting the present moment? 

At Nakshatra, these performances find their perfect stage. In this shared space, dance becomes a metaphor for life itself. It stops being a destination. It unfolds as an ongoing journey; of questions, reflections, and continual movement forward.