Cultural Devotion: Mastering the Bharatanatyam

At 8 years old, Kajal Parmar began training for an ancient and intricate Indian dance form that culminates in a 5-hour, solo performance.
by Liza Roberts

When Kajal Parmar was 8 years old, she made a decision that would shape her young life. The Raleigh girl devoted herself to mastering an ancient and intricate Indian dance form known as Bharatanatyam. 

Now 16, Parmar, a daughter and granddaughter of Indian immigrants, says the physical and artistic challenge appealed to her. “But it was also a way for me to learn about my cultural heritage,” she says.

Parmar understood that the course of study would be intense, requiring hours of practice every week and a commitment to representing the dance’s cultural and historic legacy through expressive dance-led storytelling and technically precise movements. She knew the challenge would stretch well into her teenage years, but even as a child, she was determined to try. “My mother had completed it, so that definitely motivated me,” says the Cary Academy junior. 

The Bharatanatyam is a spiritual and reverential practice with a 3,000-year history and roots in the Hindu temples of Tamil Nadu, a state in South India, though today the dance form is taught and practiced throughout the country. Bharatanatyam expresses spiritual and religious themes with three styles of dance: a highly technical form known as nritta; an expressive, stylized type known as nritya; and a dramatic storytelling variety called natya. At its essence, the art form is an act of cultural devotion. 

Parmar’s mother, Shefali Parmar, encouraged her pursuit, as did her Indian-born father, Vaibhav Parmar. In the process, the young Parmar became one of hundreds of Triangle-area Bharatanatyam students. It’s a growing number, reflecting a near-doubling of the Indian-American population in the area over the past
decade. 

According to the national organization Indian American Impact, North Carolina’s Asian American population has surged by 68 percent since 2014 to 440,000, with Indian Americans making up the largest proportion of that number. Most of the state’s South Asian population has settled in the Triangle and Charlotte areas; in Morrisville, for example, people from India and other Southeast Asian countries today represent 36 percent of the population, the town says. 

As the population has grown, the number of local students of the Bharatanatyam has also expanded. Even so, very few students anywhere pursue it the particularly intensive way that Parmar did. Instead of becoming part of a large class that culminates in a group performance, Parmar chose an individual, traditional form of training with a guru over many years that culminates in a solo, five-hour version of the performance known as a Bharatanatyam Aragentram. 

Eight years and countless hours of practice hours later (including two weeks of study in India), Parmar’s childhood decision came to fruition last February in a formal performance. She danced alone on the stage for five hours, accompanied only by an orchestra flown in from India for the occasion. 

More than 500 of her friends and family, most beautifully dressed in saris and other traditional forms of Indian clothing, filled The Clayton Center’s auditorium for the event. They joined the dancer, her parents, and her grandparents, Jayprakash and Niranjana Parmar and Ramesh and Kala Patel, for a traditional dinner afterward. 

The performance marked not only Kajal Parmar’s mastery of the art form, it formed a rite of passage, a coming of age and a celebration of her family’s culture and tradition. It was also the culmination of her many years under the tutelage of Karnataka Kalashree Guru Smt. Supriya Desai, a renowned dancer and choreographer who has taught hundreds of dancers in the area for more than 30 years. 

“I replicate exactly how we do it in India,” Desai says. The teacher was able to focus solely on Parmar after two dancers she had been studying alongside dropped out during the pandemic. “Everyone else had stopped, but she continued,” Desai recalls. “She understood, and her parents understood, what
it takes.”

What it takes, the teacher emphasizes, is more than a time commitment. “It’s very tough and intense,” Desai says. “We have no deadlines. We work on it and we work on it. We build our stamina. We build our skills. I didn’t let her compromise. I made her tough.”

Parmar says the process was worth it. “My teacher was very strict, with a traditional teaching style, but I accepted the challenge,” Parmar says. She credits her training on Cary Academy’s varsity cross country team with providing her with the necessary physical stamina to fuel her dance training: “My aerobic capacity helped in the long and difficult dances, and I believe dance helped in my running, too. Mentally, it helped me through races and runs. They went well together.”

In her student, Desai found a kindred spirit. “People call me a perfectionist, but I’m hard on myself,” Desai says. “I always try to be a better version of myself. Kajal is similar to that. She wants to do better.”

As Parmar’s several-hour performance unfolded, her drive, athleticism and artistry were called on in equal measure. 

“It was very satisfying after many years of looking forward to it,” Parmar says, “But it was definitely not the end. I want to keep dancing. Not as intensely, but I want to continue what I’ve been learning. When I go to college, I want to continue performing this kind of dance.” 

This article originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of WALTER magazine.