Dancing a holographic consciousness

- Dr. Lata Surendra
e-mail: kalashrilata29@gmail.com

February 2, 2026

'Highlighting the deep interconnectedness between the individual and the Universe'
My journey as a performer through six and a half decades is a personal exploration of a lifelong dance path, referencing the idea of a "holographic consciousness" as a way to describe the multifaceted, interconnected, and enduring nature of my identity and experience, which is deeply interwoven with the art form of Bharatanatyam. It involves my evolving with the dance form, a legacy from ancient times, and highlights how this journey has me connect me to my inner self, cultural heritage, and the broader human experience, even in this digital age. A six-decade journey implies mastery, adaptation, and a long-term engagement with the art, perhaps witnessing its changes and incorporating new influences, while yet remaining true to its roots. With the dance becoming an integral part of my inner core and outward expression, I awakened to evolving life inspiring the Art and Art contributing to Life and awakened to my integrated and interconnected 'sense of self', where me - the dancer, the art form, and the spiritual and cultural heritage of my country became parts of a unified whole, much like a hologram that captures a 3D image from a single point. The dance transformed as a journey of consciousness, where I sought to find myself through movement and expression to experience that in being all that I reached out with I was not distinct from life but life itself.

A Bharatanatyam dancer's creativity manifests as a personal interpretation and expression within the strict classical form, where the dancer "adds color" to the traditional outline of a poem and music, much like a poet who crafts his verse from established words and rhythm. Holographic consciousness, in this context, could be understood as the ability to grasp the interconnectedness of the dance's elements - emotion (bhavam), melody (ragam), and rhythm (talam) - to perceive how a single movement or expression resonates as a complete, three-dimensional experience within the dancer's mind and body, and then to project that intricate, holistic understanding outwards through their movements.

The Indian temple dance forms, through the dancer's body, create an illusion of depth and complexity, much like a hologram projecting a three-dimensional image from a two-dimensional interference pattern. The thoughts, emotions, and movements of classical dance exponents highlight a journey from the tangible to the intangible, from the particular to the universal. It relates itself as part of a larger cosmic dance, influencing and being influenced by the whole. The more one delves into it the more one realizes the stark connection between the structured nature of Bharatanatyam and the holographic principle, where a seemingly complex system is encoded within a lower-dimensional surface. In fact, what is now in Quantum string theory has always qualitatively been the thread that has had the cathartics folds of dance awaken the dancer and the Rasika to the one in all and all in the one!

What is rediscovered always through Science as a progressive journey outward is what our culture has always endorsed as a Truth within that we walk with. It is about the energized dust that is the body transforming to light and the dance, not as distinct and separate from each other but as each other - as a Truth that transforms us as the divinity incarnate - TAT TVAM ASI - I am that which makes thee what thou art .. And I am all that I reach out with.

Today one comes across the term 'holographic consciousness' - a concept suggesting that the universe, including consciousness, is a projection of information encoded on a boundary surface, a new word for what was always explicit, highlighted in our culture and reflected in all the classical dance forms of the country. The concept of holographic consciousness aligns with this idea by suggesting that the universe is a projected reality, akin to a movie on a screen, where each individual point of consciousness perceives its own holographic world based on information encoded on its "event horizon". In holographic consciousness, this is extended to the idea that individual minds could create their own internal, holographic models of the universe by tapping into this fundamental layer of information. It is interesting to note that both concepts point to a unified underlying reality (Brahman in Hinduism, the fundamental information/consciousness in the holographic model) from which all individual experiences and phenomena appear to arise.

In fact, through the lens of holographic consciousness, the dancer's body, in Bharatanatyam, becomes a microcosm of the universe, with rhythmic movements mirroring cosmic balance and harmony and absolutely reflecting the macrocosm of balance, rhythm, and harmony. The dance, through its intricate patterns and expressions, can be seen as a process of unfolding consciousness with the human body as a conduit for universal energies and spiritual truths connecting the individual with the Universal. For an audience, the stage transforms as one journeys with the dancer and then journeys with her to unfolding dimensions. Her awareness of the medium, her vision of life, and her bliss sieved through the flux of life transforming the particular to the universal!

I remember the interesting lectures wherein I awakened to the didactic potency of Art as my Professor Dr Patanker underlined the Plato - Aristotle controversy. Greek philosophers like Plato theorized that art is an imitation of the real world, a principle known as Mimesis. Plato viewed mimesis, or imitation, as a representation of reality that is twice removed from the true forms, making it an inferior form of knowledge. He believed that the world we perceive is merely a copy of ideal forms, and art imitates these perceptions, thus creating an imitation of an imitation. It was this that led Plato to be critical of art, particularly poetry, on both epistemological and moral grounds, as he felt it could lead people away from truth and towards illusion. Aristotle underlined how art not only imitated nature but completed its deficiencies because the aim of the arts was not to reproduce the outward appearances of the world but their inward significance.

The concept of "vivarta" in Hindu philosophy describes the apparent but unreal transformation of the ultimate reality (Brahman) into the perceived world. It draws attention to the fact that our reality is a projection, a concept explored in physics and the idea that structured information creates consciousness. Indian temple dance forms also reflect this holistic worldview, moving beyond mere imitation to express spiritual and philosophical ideas through organized movement, sound, and symbolism. The world is not a real change in Brahman but a mere manifestation or "overturning" of it, similar to how a rope can appear as a snake. The interconnectedness of all things, as suggested by holographic principles, can be seen in the way Bharatanatyam connects the dancer to the audience and to the larger world. The dancer's movements and expressions create a shared experience, fostering a sense of unity and connection. The holographic perspective if you look at it encourages a deeper understanding of the personal and this is also reflective of the didactic potency inherent in the Indian classical dance that allows for both personal interpretation and universal resonance, as each dancer brings their unique perspective while connecting to the larger themes of existence. In fact, relating the two is to smile and shrug it off with sense of pride that it was always so and thus may it be!

It is not as though the exploration of Bharatanatyam through the lens of holographic consciousness opens up new avenues for understanding the art form and its potential for personal and collective transformation. Rather it awakens us to our own inherent strength and has us revel in the inherent wisdom of the soil we are born into.

On a personal front, Bharatanatyam, with its intricate movements, expressions, and emotional depth, has always been a dynamic representation of the holographic universe, offering a powerful way to explore the interconnectedness of mind, body, and the cosmos. Through the years of imbibing, inculcating, walking, talking and dancing the dance; shrouded in mystical light, one awakens to the body as sheer energized dust. An awakening of matter that does not need to fight gravity. Why indeed should one do so when there is no sky! The tingling of divine energy opens out magically and has the very core of one's being resonate with the universe.

Sometimes as one explores the lyrical content as the singer explores the melody content of a composition, one meanders into fresh pathways of meanings one has never touched upon, movements that unfold and has one's feet gather wings and the soul fly. It is as one looks back on these moments that one wonders if we are retracing our soul imprints in a timeless unfettered dimension. I begin to wonder if the hologram is a belief made visible that could be coded into our entire frequency and our body subconscious where the control panel isn't outside but it is in our inner consciousness. Perhaps hologrammic reality is where consciousness writes the data the projection runs on. We can understand that the wall is light if we believe and transform as light that could pass through light. An instant shift that happens where the rules of physicality does not apply to you anymore. It's not about force but vibration. It is about a need to transcend all limitations - even the idea of a solid world.

We have to break the idea that this world is a limiting world and that is the first veil that my Guru, the legendary Vidwan T.S. Kadirvelu Pillai lifted. As I danced his calculations, I sculpted dimension as a vibration. I became aware of the fact that from the cradle to the grave, our system is taught to consciously feel pain, gravity, time, density, creating a locked loop that we need to transcend. Bound in that time, class to class, performance to performance, I journeyed from the tangible to intangible, connecting and then losing myself, exultant and reveling in flowing with that which was always imprinted upon my soul.

I noticed that reality bends when our mental state shifts and that miracles are not impossible but they are just glitches in the matrix that show that a matrix can also glitch and then, you start working on yourself practicing not just mentally but energetically. You feel your way into lighter states dropping the heaviness. You start reinforcing the limitless through speech and emotion in routing into the impossible to feel familiar. Looking back on classes gone by, I realize that my Guru created a total inner rebellion. Subtle at first but unstoppable once I got the taste, I awakened to the fact that we are born into a body with an in built system of pain receptors. And it misleads us with a pain that it is real. You touch fire you cry; you fall and you rise each time so the body becomes the evidence and then the challenge of the Guru becomes the enforcer. You realize that the pain receptors are not the problem; it is just that we identify with the body as the whole self. But then I awakened to the body as a simulation, a response. To transcend it, I needed to shift my relationship and connect to it by seeing it as a stimulation, not a punishment. Almost like training wheels designed to guide until you realize you do not need them anymore for you are scaling the timeless that seek wings of bliss, not wheels.

We are just lighter pure projection of divine thought shaping pure reality. If reality is a projection then our body is just part of that avatar. Death is just a rule in the code, not an absolute truth and if one saint can do it others can do it and come out of fear based control. I realize today that all that is -'was' always! The body is not the real me or you. In fact, we are just the rendered... we are but the template.

In moments of quiet contemplation, as the boundary between "inner" and the "outside world" blur, the holographic nature of reality will emerge quite naturally to have the inner mirror the outer in a seamless, luminous dance. We would then realize that the patterns within our heart - compassion, creativity, peace, embrace the same fundamental vibrations found in the stars.

We could relate to what Einstein called a "cosmic religious feeling" - a sense of awe at the rational and mysterious order of the holographic universe ever so awe-inspiring! It would then relate itself to that which was considered as solely mystical: the world as illusion, the part containing the whole, life as a web of interdependence, and consciousness as key. Perhaps each would find its logic in scientific discourse. Thus, science, through holographic and information centric theories, would thereby converge on an understanding of reality that, while not invoking a supernatural power could at least echo theological concepts in a profound way.

Thus, if for a believer "God is what connects everything," physics can relate to it with 'entanglement being a physical connection transcending spatial separation' because entangled particles behave as a single entity even when light years apart. A theologian might call that a glimpse of the omnipresent spirit underlying creation and a physicist could call it a consequence of quantum theory. If God is the harmony of all that exists, then the cosmic information (the master equation or dataset on the boundary) is the source of that harmony. It's as if the laws of physics - which are inherently mathematical and informational - are the "mind of God" manifest.

In fact, it is that moment of profound realization when the universe observing itself smiles as a knowing mother encushioned in her child's trusting heart as -Motherhood to unfold as Art!

In fields of light where silence takes its form,
She rises, a fierce, a gentle, human storm

She is the nexus, vibrant, fully lit,
The human heart where digital dreams are knit,
Dancing the void where all perception starts,
A single truth in myriad flashing parts!

References:
Gratitude to the journals of my Professor, University of Mumbai - Dr. R.B. Patankar (Marathi critic and scholar of modern aesthetics)
* The Holographic Universe was written by American author Michael Talbot
* The Einstein Hologram Universe by Gregory Friedlander

Dr. Lata Surendra is a performer, mentor, an imaginative choreographer, a sought after curator, a dance journalist, a committed independent researcher, a sensitive poet and in the field of dance for over six decades.

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