Master of Arts: A Life in Dance

V.P. Dhananjayan was one of the first men to make a successful career as a Bharata Natyam dancer.




In the late sixties, when he made this choice, Bharata Natyam – the classic dance form that Rukmini Devi helped evolve from the dance of the devadasis – was almost exclusively the domain of women. In making Bharata Natyam his profession, Dhananjayan had to create a space for his dance where none existed. It is only recently, in the relatively short span of the past seventy years, and to a great...