Bharatanatyam & Kuchipudi · Dublin, California
A school founded and directed by Smt. Chandna Talluri. Students train here from their first adavu — the basic step — to arangetram, the evening they ascend the stage alone.
The Temple of Dance
Nartanaalaya
Artistic Director
Smt. Chandna Talluri
Adi talam
Nartana + aalaya.Dance, and theplace it is kept.
Bharatanatyam is old, exacting, and physical. It is learned the way it has always been learned: standing in araimandi until the thighs burn, counting a talam out loud, repeating one adavu until the shape is right rather than nearly right.
Nartanaalaya teaches it that way. Classes are small. Progress is measured in adavus mastered, not terms completed. Students who stay the course spend eight to twelve years here before their arangetram, and they leave able to hold a stage on their own for two and a half hours.
- of training before an arangetram
- 8–12yearsof training before an arangetram
- alone on stage, with live orchestra
- 150minutesalone on stage, with live orchestra
- in the margam, in fixed order
- 05piecesin the margam, in fixed order
- in Adi talam — the first cycle taught
- 08beatsin Adi talam — the first cycle taught
What a studentis working toward
A full recital follows the margam — a fixed order, worked out over centuries, that carries a dancer from invocation to farewell. Each piece asks for something the one before it did not.
01 / 05
Pushpanjali
An offering of flowers. The dancer salutes the stage, the guru, and the audience before anything else happens.
02 / 05
Jatiswaram
Pure rhythm and melody. No story yet — only line, speed, and the geometry of the body moving through fixed positions.
03 / 05
Varnam
The long centre of the recital. Rhythm and expression braided together for forty minutes or more, and the piece a dancer is finally judged on.
04 / 05
Padam
Abhinaya alone. The face carries the poem while the feet keep still. Nowhere to hide behind technique.
05 / 05
Thillana
The dance returns to rhythm and ends bright, fast, and sculptural — a last set of shapes held against the music.
Every arangetramthis school haspresented
Three dancers, in their own words and under their own production titles. Each one links out to the site the dancer built for their own evening.
Presented01 / 03
Tanvika Karupakula
Shakthi — The Power Within
The many faces of the feminine divine, and the strength a dancer finds in herself along the way.
- Date
- Venue
- Dublin High SchoolDublin, California
Trividha keeps thepractice between classes
An app built for this school and schools like it — attendance, homework videos, practice streaks, and one place for teachers and parents to talk.