Varnam, and why mine is awesome

I haven't yet explained much about what's involved in my arangetram itself. At its most basic, it's a bunch of dance pieces together with an intermission. A definition for 'varnam' is:

'In technical parlance, this dance composition commences with usually four and rarely six feet of sahitya, each corresponding to one avarta, or cycle of the tala. The song dwells upon the longing of the nayika, to meet the nayaka, the nayaka may be a god or a king or a patron. A series of pure dance sequences alternate with abhinaya for almost every line of the song and reach a climax in which raga, bhava, and tala, find synchronization, with the feet showing jathis in varied and roundabout gaits, the hastas depicting the meaning of the song, and the mukhajabhinaya, the facial expressions bringing out the various hues of emotions...'[1]

Now that we're clear on that, we can move on... HAHA, just kidding! To be honest, I don't understand half of what that means, but the major take away is that the varnam is the core piece of a performance. It's one of the few pieces that combines all aspects of Bharatanatyam, including intricate steps (jathis), miming/signing gestures (hastas), and facial expressions of emotions (mukhajabhinaya). Generally, varnams are about maidens (nayika) longing after someone (nayaka) who tends to be Krishna.

My varnam is a little different. It subverts tradition by focusing not on divine imaginary love for a philandering diety but instead on the challenges of being just another woman in one of these Gods' harems. In my case, the woman is Deivayanai, daughter of supreme God Indra, and wife of Muruga - son of Shiva, God of Tamils, and triflin' bastard. She is dishing to her girl about the dalliances of her husband with his new flame Valli, a mountain tribal girl.

'Hey ladies, wanna ride on my peacock?'

This varnam is very contemporary in that it's only about 100 years old. It was composed by P B Subramaniam (note: Subramaniam is the Telugu name for Muruga) who, according to my Honourable Dance Teacher, was sick of seeing endless varnams about women pining after good for nothing men. How revolutionary! It took the west another 90 years to come up with Sex and the City. This is one of the things that draws me to dance - it is one of the strongest vehicles for tradition, yet there's so much debate and discussion and protest that it's one of the finest sources of progressive thought in India and the world in general.