As the lights dimmed and the air buzzed with anticipation, a lone spotlight lit the stage. Bharathi Penneswaran emerged like a whisper in the dark—measured, regal, aflame with intent.

Bharathi Penneswaran, Artistic Director of Aalokam Dance Company and originally a Delhite, brings over 20 years of experience in training, performing, and teaching Bharatanatyam with her. She co-founded Aalokam as a non-profit alongside Jyotsna Kalyansundar in 2015. Bharathi’s accolades range from her performance as the lead protagonist in an Indian National Award Winning documentary, O Friend, This Waiting, directed by Justin McCarthy & Sandhya Kumar, a post-diploma in Bharatanatyam, plus solo and group performances globally.

Bharathi is known for blending technical brilliance with creative provocation. Her latest work, Strings of Desire, performed by students of Aalokam Dance Company, does just that—pulling audiences into a world of female desire, where women’s passion and power take center stage. 

Today, Bharatanatyam is typically construed as a “proper” and “chaste” form of dance, often depicting women worshipping the male divine. Historically, Bharatanatyam originated as a re-constructed version of traditional dances that centered around female sexuality and were performed by devadasi courtesans. 

The theme of female desire and sexuality is Bharatanatyam at its core, but the way Aalokam represents this through their dance, unlike many other similar performances today, feels revolutionary and refreshing. 

Read More: How Brahmins appropriated Bharatnatyam from Devadasi Courtesan Dancers

Each of the evening’s four pieces asked: What does it mean for a woman to want? To crave? To be seen?

Piece One: “Varnam Redux”

Strings of Desire opened with Bharathi’s solo. She performed in the style of Shilpanatayam, a form of dance that “mobilizes visual art” and is inspired by sculptures and paintings found in historic Hindu temples in India. 

“Varnam Redux”, a classical varnam choreographed by guest artist Maya Kulkarni, depicts romantic yearning through the act of devotion. 

Bharathi brings to the audience a woman who has fallen in love with Shiva, a Hindu god known as the Destroyer. “The woman is captured by the beauty and majesty of Lord Shiva, and is cajoling and pleading with him for love,” Bharathi explains. 

Every tilt of the chin and every trembling ankle was charged. Her face fluttered through seduction, doubt, heartbreak, and hope as she pleaded with the unseen god for his love. At times, she drew toward the center like a prayer incarnate; at others, she retreated into the shadows, swallowed by fear. In the end, devotion does not just tame desire—it enflames it. 

Piece Two: “Under the Spell of Desire”

Eight dancers, no props, one god: Kamadeva. 

Considered to be the Hindu equivalent of cupid, Kamadeva is the God of eroticism, desire, and pleasure, and is the personification of kama. “Under the Spell of Desire” is choreographed by Bharathi. 

Kamadeva—played with magnetic arrogance—struts across a chariot of parrots, wielding his sugarcane bow. His apsaras swarm around him, avatars of allure and seduction. Depicted on his chariot of parrots, with a bow of sugarcane, Kamadeva strikes his enemies.

But there’s a twist. 

Kamadeva is struck by his own arrow. His smugness melts into agony, and the apsaras turn from muses to mourners, encircling his collapse. He is consumed by the fire he once wielded.

Bharathi was clearly inspired by the richness of Hindu mythology, but her message finds its depth in the current political environment. “I wanted to show how it feels when someone might get a taste of their own impact.” 

Piece Three: “Breath Between Fingers”

Djinn, also known as genies, are supernatural beings in Islamic and pre-Islamic Arabic cultures. In Delhi, a community of Sufi devotees believe that Djinn possess beautiful women. “Oftentimes, these women are just demonstrating emotions they feel”, Bharathi speculates. 

Bharathi returned to the stage for the third piece, a solo as eerie as it was breathtaking. She plays a woman possessed by Djinn.

The dream like sequence depicts a woman haunted by a presence, and the stage is her dreamscape. She lays there, oscillating between sleep and dreams that cause her to writhe. Her hands caress the air. Bharathi is possessed by longing. She reaches into the abyss to touch the spirit whose presence she can feel, but can’t see. 

As she wakes up from her dream sequence, she struggles to find the spirit. A singular spotlight follows Bharathi around the stage, amplifying her emotions of fear and longing. The piece leaves the audience wanting more, demonstrating unfinished desires. Bharathi explains that the protagonist “feels sad… somewhat destroyed.” 

Piece Four: “Untamed”

Kali, a fierce female deity and the Hindu goddess of death, destruction, creation, and  change, is depicted in visual art forms as somewhat scary, but in an empowered, divine way.

“‘Untamed’ demonstrates that there are no boundaries to love, showing us the third dimension,” Bharathi says. 

The final piece was a hypnotic tribute to Kali, where the stage became a battleground of power and pleasure.

A troop of dancers surround Kali, as she pushes them into formation and slowly pulls them apart onto the floor. Kali is shown to enjoy her own desires. The  dancers around her devour this, physically consuming what society has always told women to hide.

When asked what desire means to her, Bharathi says “Society curbs women’s desire. At the end of the day, desire is felt by having no restrictions from doing anything. It can feel like love, attraction, infatuation, passion, sensuality, or even devotion.” 

To see future performances by Aalokam, visit the Aalokam website: https://www.aalokam.com/!