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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →The 2023 Natya Kala Conference in Chennai used dance to engage with social justice, gender violence, disability, migration, ageing, motherhood and the Gaza crisis. In a January 6, 2024 report, Malini Nair described the five-day edition, titled TranscenDance, as a shift toward younger dancers, individual expression and contemporary concerns—without suggesting that the event or classical dance had settled the debate over art’s role in social struggle.
What the 2023 conference set out to do
Held at Krishna Gana Sabha during Chennai’s Margazhi cultural season, the 2023 Natya Kala Conference brought performances, workshops and lecture-demonstrations under the title TranscenDance. Nair’s report described a program that brought questions often treated as outside classical dance’s rarefied spaces into the venue: social justice, gender violence, disability, migration, ageing, motherhood and the Gaza crisis.
The examples included work by Katradi, described in the report as an all-women Dalit arts activism group; She is Auspicious by Mythili Prakash; Footprints In Blood by Bimbavati Devi; and Habib Bhoomi by Ananya Chatterjea. The program also included a performance led by Shanmugha Sundaram with transgender Bharatanatyam dancers, as well as workshops related to movement therapy.
These were examples of what appeared on the 2023 program, not evidence that barriers to access in classical dance had disappeared. Nair situates the event within continuing questions about caste, class and who is welcomed into influential dance spaces.
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A conference with a long history—and a changing emphasis
Nair’s report says the conference had been held annually for 40 years by the time of publication. It traces its beginnings to 1981, when Krishna Gana Sabha founder R. Yagnaraman suggested Chennai as the venue for a proposed all-India dance conference. The Sabha’s flagship cultural activity is focused primarily on Bharatanatyam, while the conference has served as a forum for dance scholarship and performance.
The article presents TranscenDance as a change in emphasis, not a clean break with that history. Alongside established forms and technical questions, the 2023 edition gave more attention to younger dancers, individual expression and engagement with contemporary life. That is the report’s framing of this edition and its quoted organizers—not a consensus about the direction of all classical dance.
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Artists disagreed about dance’s role in social struggle
For conference convenor and Bharatanatyam dancer Rama Vaidyanathan, the form’s reach among younger practitioners makes change unavoidable: “The form’s grammar is now strong, its practitioners run into thousands, but change is inevitable: you can no longer dictate to young dancers what is acceptable and what is not.”
Choreographer and University of Minnesota dance professor Ananya Chatterjea described a different but related ambition: “We need art to connect. I love the halla bol force of street art but my quest is to bring together the formal energy and precision of classical dance and the ground-shaking political intent of justice movements. How do I bring the street and stage together?” The report captures the question driving this approach: “What is the place of this art if it cannot connect with the world around, they ask.”
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Padma Subramaniam, reflecting on the conference’s origins, offered a counterpoint. “It was always inclusive – we had dancers from the north, martial arts and therakoothu [a folk form from Tamil Nadu]. But I don’t see any battles that need to be fought in dance or by dance. We are artistes, not fighters.” Her view sits alongside, rather than resolves, the call to connect performance with justice movements.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the report does—and does not—establish
The feature documents one five-day edition in 2023 and the arguments around its programming. Its examples show how dance performances, discussion and movement-therapy workshops brought contemporary subjects into a prominent Chennai cultural institution. They do not establish that the conference continued in the same form after 2023: Nair’s report, published January 6, 2024, does not document later editions or current programming.
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