Bharatanatyam: The South Indian Classical Dance That Took Root in Malaysia

A dancer’s feet strike the floor in a rapid, precise pattern. Bells ring in time with the beat of a mridangam drum. Her hands form a shape — a deer, a lotus, a question — and her eyes follow it before her face answers with an emotion the audience is meant to feel, not just watch. Then the rhythm resolves, she holds a sculptural pose, and the music drops to silence.

This is Bharatanatyam, one of India’s classical dance forms, and it has been danced in Malaysia for over half a century.

A form built on two ideas

According to Malaysia’s national cultural mapping database (JKKN), Bharatanatyam traces its theoretical roots to the Natya Shastra, an ancient Sanskrit text on performing arts attributed to the sage Bharata Muni. From South Indian temple and court tradition, it developed into the structured solo dance form now taught worldwide.

Bharatanatyam rests on two components, per JKKN’s description:

• Nritta — pure, abstract movement: footwork, turns and rhythmic patterns performed for their own visual and rhythmic value, without narrative meaning.
• Nritya — expressive, narrative movement: the same vocabulary of gesture and footwork now carrying a story, using facial expression, eye movement, hand gestures (mudras) and body positioning to convey character and emotion.

A single performance typically moves between both: passages of technical brilliance followed by passages where the dancer becomes a storyteller, sometimes playing several characters within one piece by shifting posture, gaze and gesture alone.

One structural signature, noted in the JKKN record, is symmetry: a gesture or movement performed to the right is customarily mirrored to the left, so the choreography reads as balanced across the body and the stage.

Costume and music

The traditional Bharatanatyam costume is a fitted saree, often stitched into a fan-pleated shape that flares when the dancer bends her knees into the characteristic aramandi (half-seated) position. Dancers wear temple jewellery, a bindi, and — most audibly — salangai (also called ghungroos), rows of small bells strapped to the ankles that sound with every footfall and turn.

Music is typically Carnatic (South Indian classical), built around the mridangam, a double-headed drum that carries the rhythmic cycle, alongside melodic instruments and vocal accompaniment. In a live performance, a nattuvanar (conductor) often recites rhythmic syllables and claps cymbals to cue the dancer through each passage.

How it arrived in Malaysia

Bharatanatyam’s presence in what was then Malaya grew as it was carried by touring performers, film, and the growing settled Indian community. What began as an import tied closely to community and religious life gradually became institutionalised through dedicated schools.

Several institutions anchor that history:

Institution	Founded	Founder(s)	Notes
Hari Ayer Dance School	1948	Srimathi Malar	An early dedicated dance school, per JKKN’s record
Temple of Fine Arts (TFA), Kuala Lumpur	1981	Gopal & Radha Shetty, VK & Vatsala Sivadas, inspired by Swami Shantanand Saraswathi	Grew from a small student base into a multi-storey arts centre teaching Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Kathak, Carnatic and Hindustani music
Sutra Dance Theatre	1983	Ramli Ibrahim	Founded by a Malay classical dancer and choreographer; centres Odissi alongside Bharatanatyam
Tanjai Kamalaa Indira Dance School	1966	Indira Manikam	Multi-centre school teaching Bharatanatyam, veena, vocal music and Thevaram
Malaysia Barathanatyam Dance Association	2008	Indira Manikam	National body uniting Bharatanatyam teachers and schools

The Temple of Fine Arts is a particularly well-documented case. Per its own account and reporting in The Vibes, it grew from a small teaching operation into an institution educating well over a thousand graduates over four decades, and it modernised the traditional guru-shishya (teacher-disciple) apprenticeship with formal assessments and a grading system, while keeping its spiritual and cultural framing intact.

The Malaysia Barathanatyam Dance Association, per its own site, now counts more than 70 member schools and teachers nationwide, and runs national events including the Festival of Barathanatyam and Balabaratham, a showcase for younger performers, as well as guidelines for the Salangai Poojai — the ceremony that traditionally marks a student’s readiness to perform the ankle bells in public.

Where Malaysians encounter it today

Bharatanatyam in Malaysia is not confined to the theatre stage. It appears at:

• Hindu religious occasions, including festivals such as Thaipusam and Deepavali, where dance can form part of devotional or celebratory programming.
• Community and school events, including arangetrams — a dancer’s formal solo debut performance, marking the completion of years of training.
• Ticketed productions and cultural showcases, staged by institutions such as TFA and Sutra Dance Theatre, sometimes blending classical technique with contemporary choreography for mixed audiences.
• National cultural programming, reflecting the form’s place among the dance traditions recorded in JKKN’s own cultural mapping database alongside Malay, Chinese, and other indigenous dance forms.

The community most closely associated with the form is Malaysia’s Tamil-speaking Indian population — see Tamil in Malaysia for the community’s demographic and linguistic profile — but practice has not stayed confined to one ethnic group. Ramli Ibrahim, a Malay dancer and choreographer, built a decades-long career centred on Indian classical dance forms. Mavin Khoo, a Malaysian dancer of mixed heritage trained under the Chennai-based guru Adyar K. Lakshman, became one of the internationally recognised male solo Bharatanatyam performers of his generation, later also working in classical ballet.

Common mistakes

Treating Bharatanatyam as one fixed, unchanging routine. A performance typically threads together multiple distinct segments — pure-technique passages and narrative passages — rather than repeating a single movement vocabulary throughout.

Assuming it is performed only within temples or only for a Hindu audience. In Malaysia it also appears in secular concert halls, school halls, and state-organised cultural events, alongside its continuing religious and community associations.

Assuming only dancers of Indian ethnicity practise it in Malaysia. The country’s best-known contemporary exponents include practitioners from outside the Indian community, reflecting the multi-ethnic character of Malaysia’s broader performing arts scene.

What’s next

• Read Tamil in Malaysia to understand the community most closely associated with Bharatanatyam’s history in the country.
• Read Thaipusam and Deepavali for two Hindu festivals where classical dance often features in public and community programming.
• Consult JKKN’s cultural mapping database, and the Temple of Fine Arts’ and Sutra Foundation’s own sites, for further detail on institutions, training pathways and repertoire.