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REVIEW / REPORTAncient and lived at once: On watching Naachiyar Next- Karuna Sagarie-mail: karunasagari.v@gmail.com Photos: Sant’s Fotos October 10, 2026 Dr. Anita Ratnam's Naachiyar Next, a contemporary Bharatanatyam ensemble work, has seen 25 stagings over six years. I watched it at Rukmini Arangam, the beautiful theatre at Kalakshetra, Chennai. I had a profound epiphany: I watched a character transform spiritually, mentally and emotionally over seventy minutes. It was not a chronological passage through childhood, adolescence and so on, but a deeper maturing at the level of the soul. In Naachiyar Next, Anita Ratnam became the audience's conduit to Andal's inner voice. She broke into Andal's verses in profusion, now in breathless passion, now in enunciated stillness, now in the drone of a chant that felt like an extension of her Nityanusandhanam (daily recitation of the sacred verses) on stage. What drew the entire audience in was not only the pasurams but also their passionate rendering in beautiful English prose. It opened the doors for the world to enter a sacred space that the bhaktas enjoy.  My personal glee was the spotlight given to Andal, the poet. Periyazhwar, her foster father and a fellow poet, felt perumitam (pride seems a little inadequate) when Andal first broke into song. Then that pride turned into paternal helplessness. It was a potent moment, as he watched his daughter's sheer madness for the Lord pour out as poetry and sweep her up into a delirium. There were moments of magic when the Kannadi sevai, the mirror ritual of the Srivilliputtur Andal temple, was depicted. A group of dancers held mirrors that threw light onto Andal and showed her as she adorned herself with the tulasi garland meant for the Lord. The act was both intimate and symbolic. Short of embracing him, the closest she can get to the Lord is to send him a garland that carries her fragrance. Research into verse and cultural practice is something most dancers of our times have access to. What is rare is to see the hagiographical details of Andal's story move seamlessly into a kovil (temple) tradition that has been practised for centuries to this day. When that happens, poetry that is a thousand years old becomes ancient and lived at once. As a Tamil who is deeply entrenched in the verses of both the Azhwars and the Nayanmars (I am indebted to my grandmother, who is my Guru), I often feel that Tamil needs the bevel and emboss that Photoshop uses to give an image a 3D lift. When Anita Ratnam contextualised Andal as a predecessor of Meera, Akka Mahadevi and Janabai, she did just this. It brought out the phenomenal daring of a language and culture that made speaking with God possible in the mother tongue while situating it in the Vedic and Agamic heritage, the base that lets mystics talk in metaphors across a country the size of a continent!  Dr. Sridhar Vasudevan & Nandini Subbulakshmi Nandini Ganesh Subbulakshmi was brilliant as Andal, both as a dancer and as a patra, a vessel, for the poet. Her technique allowed her to move from the collective to the personal, from the outward to the inward, from a glance that held the Lord's eye to a vision blurred by a veil of tears. Her poetic rendition, and her cry for Keshava from the depth of her being, made me shudder. As Periyazhwar, Dr. Sridhar Vasudevan brought a musicality and a beauty of gestural language that were a joy to watch. Reshma came in with all the spunk of the korathis, the fortune-tellers of the Tamil hills. The ensemble dancers moved organically and with ease. I have always wondered about passion in group productions. An entire crew can be inspired by the dramatic energy of a storyline, and that energy does transport the artistes who embody it to another zone. But to have everyone pulsating and vibrating to verse is uncommon. And this was original verse, not rewritten, not diluted, not simplified, but the original in all its glory. I would not be surprised if at least 25 pasurams were quoted in the production. I suspect every dancer knew them by heart, whether or not they did the recitation. The musicians were passionate, versatile and perfectly in sync: Janani Hamsini on vocals, Subashri L on the talam and sound effects, Sowmya Ramesh on the veena and Aswini Srinivasan on the mridangam. The lights were by Victor Paulraj and the earthy costumes by Sandhya Raman. In seventy minutes, Naachiyar Next reminded me of my wonderment for the art form, Bhakti and the literature. I write this to hold on to it. Karuna Sagari is a Bharatanatyam dancer and Director of Bhakti Natya Niketan. |
