[1][2] It is a classical dance form recognized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, and expresses South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas of Hinduism and Jainism.

Bharatanatyam style is noted for its fixed upper torso, bent legs, and flexed knees (Aramandi) combined with footwork, and a vocabulary of sign language based on gestures of hands, eyes, and face muscles.

[13][14] A program of bharatanatyam usually lasts two hours without interruption and includes a specific list of procedures, all performed by one dancer, who does not leave the stage or change costume.

[11][15][16] Modern stage productions of Bharatanatyam have become popular throughout India and include performances that are purely dance-based on non-religious ideas and fusion themes.

[17] In 1932, E Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi Arundale put forward a proposal to rename Sadiraattam (Tamil: சதிராட்டம்), also known as Parathaiyar Aattam or Thevarattam, as Bharatanatyam, to give the dance form a measure of respect, at a meeting of the Madras Music Academy.

[10][11][31] A famous example of illustrative sculpture is in the southern gateway of the Chidambaram temple (≈12th century) dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, where 108 poses, described as karanas in the Natya Shastra, are carved in stone.

[44][45] Historic sculptures and texts do describe and project dancing girls, as well as temple quarters dedicated to women, but they do not state them to be courtesans and prostitutes as alleged by early colonial Indologists.

[43] According to Davesh Soneji, a critical examination of evidence suggests that courtesan dancing is a phenomenon of the modern era, beginning in the late 16th or the 17th century of the Nayaka period of Tamil Nadu.

[46] With the arrival of the East India Company in the 18th century, and British colonial rule in the 19th, classical Indian dance forms were ridiculed and discouraged, and these performance arts declined.

[53] Temple dancing became caught in a web of multiple political agendas, hoping to bend this burgeoning morality issue to suit their cause.

[54] Figures like Rukmini Devi Arundale, who are credited with revitalizing Bharatanatyam, also shifted the practice to appeal to middle to upper-class women.

These festivals were put on to display art with religious, social, and cultural connotations that have some regional diversity on a common national platform.

[67][68] The solo artist (ekaharya) in Bharatanatyam is dressed in a colorful sari, adorned with jewelry and presents a dance and it is synchronized with Indian classical music.

[67] The hand and facial gestures are a coded sign language able to recite legends and spiritual ideas from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Puranas and historic drama texts.

[67][69] The dancer deploys turns or specific body movements to mark punctuations in the story or the entry of a different character in the play or legend being acted out through dance.

[67][70] In modern adaptations, Bharatanatyam dance troupes may involve many dancers who play specific characters in a story, creatively choreographed to ease the interpretation and expand the experience by the audience.

alarippu, jatiswaram, varnam, padams, tillana and the shloka is the correct sequence in the practice of this art, which is an artistic Yoga, for revealing the spiritual through the corporeal.

A Bharatanatyam arangetram is a solo debut performance that signifies the completion of initial formal training of a young dancer, female or male in Indian classical dance.

It also serves as a preliminary warm-up dance, without melody, to enable the dancer to loosen their body, and journey away from distractions and towards single-minded focus.

The solo dancer, the vocalist(s), and the musical team, in this stage of the production, present short compositions, with words and meaning, in a spectrum of moods.

The artist presents the play or the main composition, reveling in all their movements, silently communicating the text through codified gestures and footwork, harmoniously with the music, rhythmically punctuated.

[86] Their hands and body tell a story, whether of love and longing or of a battle between the good and the evil,[87] as the musicians envelop them with musical notes and tones that set the appropriate mood.

Some dancers also opt for an unstitched sari that is draped specially, with the single piece of cloth starting around the legs like a dhoti, then upwards along the front torso, over the left shoulder, and then down the back with its end held at the waist by a jeweled belt.

[94] The costume of a male Bharatanatyam dancer is usually either a sari or a white cotton cloth draped around the legs and bottom half of the body like a dhoti.

Both male and female dancers wear makeup, including foundation, blush, lipstick, and thick eyeliner or kohl, which helps the audience see and understand their facial expressions.

[101] The instruments used include the mridangam (double-sided drum), nadaswaram (long type of oboe made from black wood), nattuvangam (cymbals), the flute, violin and veena.

The roots of abhinaya appear in the Natya Shastra text, which defines drama in verse 6.10 as something that aesthetically arouses joy in the spectator, through the medium of the actor's art of communication, that helps connect and transport the individual into a sensual inner state of being.

[102] Drama in this ancient Sanskrit text, thus is an art that engages every aspect of life to glorify and give a state of joyful consciousness.

[104] In the Hindu texts on dance, the dancer successfully expresses the spiritual ideas by paying attention to four aspects of a performance: Angika (gestures and body language), Vachika (song, recitation, music and rhythm), Aharya (stage setting, costume, makeup, jewelry), and Sattvika (artist's mental disposition and emotional connection with the story and audience, wherein the artist's inner and outer state resonates).

However, post-independence, with rising interest in its history, the ancient traditions, the invocation rituals and the spiritually expressive part of the dance has returned.