Rukmini Vijayakumar Instagram – “Will Shiva perhaps turn and look back at me?” , she asked herself. “Will he walk down this street?” The anticipation of a young girl in love is beautifully expressed in the lyrics of this song. “Teruvil Vaarano”. In Bharatanatyam , we use the lyrics as a guiding light, but add layers of subtext and emotion. It is not ‘mime’ . We don’t literally represent the lyrics but follow an interpretation of the emotional journey of a character. Though the literal meaning of the lyrics is as I have written above…. In this video excerpt… this is what the character is saying – thinking- “When he turns, will the snake around his neck also turn and look at me? Oh my god! That would be incredible… ” Each time the lyrics repeat we emote the subtext… this seems simple enough …. But it also needs to follow a lot of rules. Rhythm, aesthetic, etc The subtext also cannot be so far removed from the lyrics that they do not connect …. 🙂 If you’d all like a few more of these informative excerpts… please comment below and I’ll share some more. 😊 Full video on my YouTube channel. “Raadha kalpa” Music : @sikkilgurucharan @anilsrinivasan Video : @vivianambrose #dance #bharatanatyam #education #raadhakalpa #indianculture #tradition #classicalindiandance