Anita Ratnam: “The market economy in the performing arts is like a cannibal”

The word ‘mastery’ has multiple meanings for me: mastering the technique to free the spirit; finding the movement arrangements to move people and not just yourself; and expanding the bodily intelligence to move through training, technique and collaboration to arrive at something that is your own signature. After 50 years in the performance discourse, I seek simplicity as mastery. I seek freedom alongside rigour. And I seek humility after acclaim.

You have trained in Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Mohiniattam, Yoga, Butoh, and Tai Chi. What has helped you stay so open to learning and absorbing different influences?

The home atmosphere was always about combining the traditional with the modern. My parents (mother Leela Ratnam and father Rajam Ratnam) were the OG collaborators in business, social work, fashion and sports. I watched them dive into so many areas and emerge stronger and unafraid. From them I learnt that your geography is your history, and to never dilute or disown your roots, and to never be afraid of listening and collaborating with smarter people to improve.

I wanted a greater freedom to move and express and I did not want to learn western style contemporary dance. I believed that learning Indic systems that were compatible with my foundational training in Bharatanatyam could enhance my own physical vocabulary while expanding my choreographic choices. First, it was Mohinattam, to give me the rounded movements and curved kinetics. Then, it was Kathakali, to transform my face into a storyteller without my body springing into action. Then Yoga and Tai Chi entered to help centre my agitated mind because I was going through some tough times in New York City. Kalaripayattu helped me straighten the spine, embrace stillness and find the core to enable a stronger presence on stage.

Butoh was the ultimate challenge. The most difficult because it forced me to stop, and move from within while not moving at all. The inner life was a difficult confrontation for me. Indian dance systems demand the opposite — to show and tell, not stop and excavate within.

Sometimes, artistes are told to make a choice between pursuing depth and breadth because they cannot have both. How do you respond to this line of thinking?

These demands are made from the outside: viewers, critics, funders. What does depth versus breadth actually imply? There was a time when artists could take up to two or three years or maybe more to create an evening’s work. Maybe there are still the rare few who do that. The market economy in the performing arts is like a cannibal that denies the brain the time and space to soak in, percolate and assimilate. One can reduce this argument into Superficial vs Gravitas. Let us not privilege one over the other. Let us say good dance versus bad or shallow dance.

I need time to realise a work; months or even a year. But I know of some classical choreographers and dancers who can create a new work every other month and it is good. An artiste needs an entire team to look after dramaturgy, costumes, sets, lighting, choreography, public relations, social media, and funding to be able to throw up new productions quickly.

Today, artistes cannot afford to slip from the public eye. If you are not making some sort of noise on digital platforms, presenters will forget you and your name will not emerge on their mind screen as an option. A middle path has to be found. Social media visibility says: I am here. But a quiet and consistent work ethic is needed from the initial concept to the realisation of the idea.

How was the experience of filming with Mriidu Khosla for StoneX Global’s Mastery film series? How did the choice of location influence what you ended up sharing?

The entire experience was terrific, from the start of our communication to the premiere. The shoot took place in February 2025. The location was my family home, called Sri Raj, which is beautifully spacious with two gardens, designed by my mother 60 years ago. I have created all my shows there. The floors bear the weight of my feet, my body and my imagination.

Mriidu and her team were fantastic. They gently probed me for a variety of visuals. I was intrigued about their intensely personal approach. From doing Tai Chi in the garden to resting on the Bhishma Bench, created by BKS Iyengar for chest expansion and heart health, to short bursts of performance and movement in my dance studio, Mriidu was patient and relentless. I remember noticing how much background research they did on my life. I spoke about the challenging and dangerous times I experienced in New York City as my marriage fell apart, and had to pause when my eyes filled up. That was 38 years ago, and it still brought intense feelings!

Having worked in television, I was very comfortable with the routines and demands. I loved the entire day, and was blown away with the care and attention they paid to every aspect of the shoot. They moved around all the furniture very carefully, since I had stated loudly that many pieces were special commissions by master craftsmen in Madurai and Chettinad.

The final edits were fabulous. I cried softly when I saw the premiere in New Delhi, because I missed my mother so much. As I said in the film, I am her unfinished legacy. I am in total admiration of a corporate organisation like StoneX Global considering a series like Mastery across creative genres and taking the risk in identifying and giving full freedom to the dynamic film team. To look for mastery across disciplines is a bold vision, and to be featured among this grand galaxy of artistes — many of whom are my idols — is an enormous privilege.

As a student of Kalakshetra, how do you look back at the legacy of Rukmini Devi Arundale? If you could have a conversation with her today, what would you talk about?

The contribution of Atthai, Shrimati Rukmini Devi Arundale, cannot be diminished or devalued. Today, thousands of dancers are in the world because of her imagination and daring. To see caste baiters attempt to pull down her legacy to suit their echo chambers is very sad.

When I studied at Kalakshetra, my favourite moments were the morning prayers under the Banyan tree. As a young girl, it was an eye opener to chant prayers from all faiths. The discipline of the classes, the fresh sea breeze cooling our sweat-soaked bodies, the girlish giggles of our classmates are all fresh in my mind. Atthai’s impeccable silk sarees with broad borders were a hall mark, and I own several of her designs even today. Weaving, costume design, group choreographies, animal welfare and dance were impacted by her vision. Her final days were sad and lonely because of so much in-fighting and betrayal by her close inner circle.

The one moment that I would ask her about would be when Chandralekha approached her in the early 1980s to ask for dancers upon whom to create her new vision of dance. To imagine these two rebels, so vastly different in approach, come face to face with deep respect for one another, was momentous. If only someone could have captured that meeting! To then have Rukmini Devi readily send eight students that same evening to Chandralekha’s beachfront space showed generosity and a genuine love of the new and adventurous.

If Chandralekha broke through the cluttered Bharatanatyam scene to create her watershed appearance in 1984 at the East West Encounter in Mumbai, it was because of the Kalakshetra dance students upon whom the modern statement of Indian dance was created.

What a moment it was! What was going through Rukmini Devi’s mind? I would like to know.

You studied theatre and television at the University of New Orleans, and worked in television in the US for over a decade. How did that help you find your voice and style?

My 10-year stint as director and producer of weekly TV shows in the New York area was a landmark event. I was fresh out of the graduate programme in New Orleans, and moved to New York to live with my sister Pritha, who worked at the United Nations. A chance meeting with businessmen who wanted to start a TV show for the Indian community was the catalyst.

I learnt it was all up to me, what I brought to the table as a professional. Not my family name, gender, identity, degrees or bank balance. The New York work ethic is brutal and life changing. I had 18-hour work days seven days a week. I loved every minute. We were making history, we thought. We ran across town, covering parades, protests, celebrations, store openings and shows.

Looking back at the period from 1980 to 1990, it was a constant adrenalin rush, a race against the clock for deadlines. Remember, it was an analog world. I developed stamina, memorised full pages of script, conducted interviews in the studio and on the street. I finished a session with Shabana Azmi and went to the hospital to deliver my son in October 1988. My water broke immediately after the lights were switched off and we stood up. She still dines out on that story!

I learned endurance, focus, staying democratic with my entire crew, carrying equipment without throwing my weight around like a superior. I multi-tasked. Working with a team that had different capabilities, and to listen to every one while trying to pull them along towards the same weekly deadline was a very valuable lesson from my NYC days.

In the film for the Mastery series, you speak about how artists are often devalued because they cannot produce profit and loss statements or produce proof of returns on investment. How do you deal with this situation?

Every dancer is a small business owner. Unless we accept that we are in a market economy, dance in India will always be beset with the poverty mindset. We no longer live in the days of enlightened patrons and nobility who will throw a pearl necklace in our direction, which we accept with servile gratitude and humility. Money is energy. We need to earn it as much as professionals in any other endeavour of life.

While a dancer spends multiple hours in the studio, creating, ideating and rehearsing, the product designer or factory operator is also working towards realising the end product. In dance, we cannot touch and feel the final moment because dance is so ephemeral. We cannot subsume art into the tired argument of “sacred” and “divine” that does not need money. Dance is the most expensive of all the arts and the least supported. If dancers accept that they deserve to be paid, fight for fair remuneration, and talk openly about unfair practices, the awareness will build up.

Dance is a profession and a calling. It is transactional between teacher and student, between presenter and artist, between manager and agent. Everything is about a shared goal and it involves money and becoming financially literate, which dancers are woefully lacking in India.

Why does the poetry of Andal resonate so deeply with you, and what led you to initiate a digital art project inspired by that?

Andal has been my shadow, my companion, my inspiration and my idol. She is also my Goddess. A personal devi. There has always been an inner call towards this young teenage firebrand who dreamt of a love so large that it breached every boundary and crossed every line. Her brilliant imagination, and her unabashed expression of love were so bold back in the 7th century CE.

I have been fascinated with her since the age of seven. First, with the costume of the top knot and the open garland. Later, with her fierce joy of life and love of Krishna. I have always carried a small book of her poems in my suitcase wherever I have travelled. It stays by my bedside and I read from it every single day. To date, I have created five full length dance works about Andal.

My latest offering, Naachiyar Next, is enjoying an uninterrupted run of six years. Wherever it is presented, there is not a dry eye in the audience. Andal is not a name known to all of India. Or even to the larger world of mystic poets. My role, it seems, is to amplify Her voice and Her story. We are inseparable. The poetry and the English narration keep the non-Tamilians hooked.

You set up a dance portal called Narthaki to connect people from the dance community. Why was this important to you? How do you look back at Narthaki’s achievements?

It was very clear that returning to a city like Madras/Chennai would mean that I was not just coming home to have a safe space for my children but also for me to cocoon and dream of a new way of belonging to the dance world I left when I was 21 years old. This city is the nerve centre of the Bharatanatyam world. I certainly did not want to become the 1001st dance guru, working with six-year-olds and training them for their Arangetram debuts. There were already 1000 or more academies strewn across every street of the city doing just that.

So, not being a teacher, I wanted to give back to the dance world at large. A way of paying it forward. To connect those “infected” with the dance bug and who were coming up against gatekeepers at various levels. The original Narthaki was imagined as phone books that would simply list names and addresses of dancers, schools, tailors, auditoriums and critics. With too many changes occurring in street numbers and telephone numbers, it became unwieldy and expensive to update the physical phone books.

So, in April 2000, Narthaki went digital. And the present avatar is an organic growth of 26 years, and counting. Reviews, articles, opinions, premieres, previews, photo essays, academic articles — the portal accumulates every voice since the space for dance writing is shrinking.

I am very pleased to see how valuable a positive comment is for a young dancer on the portal. So many are using it for their visa interviews since the brand now carries weight and credibility.

We have grown to include physical events. The Narthaki Studio Series is an intimate and up close experience of emerging talent, and the monthly Narthaki Podcast attempts to illuminate the inner lives of legends and those connected to the world of dance.

AI has arrived and will be a game changer, so Narthaki needs to understand its position and recalibrate often to understand the coming generations and their engagement with dance.

Chintan Girish Modi is a Mumbai-based writer, journalist and critic. His writing encompasses literature, art and culture. He has worked with the Kabir Project, the Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange, and the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development. He can be reached @chintanwriting on Instagram and X.