Dancing Between Worlds

On a January evening in Chennai, as lights dimmed at Dakshinamurthy Hall, Shriya Srinivasan stepped onto the Bharatanatyam stage with an unexpected subject: climate change.

- By PRIYA M ΜΕΝΟΝ

Vivarta, her dance-drama for Shri Kalaa Mandirtraced cosmic balance to ecological rupture through movement rather than explanation. “We wanted to use rasa to sensitise people to climate change,” she says. Choreographed with her mother and guru, Sujatha Srinivasan—who appeared as Mother Earth—the work premiered in Cleveland in 2019 and is now touring India.