Bengaluru is a city that let dance breathe, Madhu Natraj

Dance is a ‘womb memory’ for me. By the time I was two, I could recite complex rhythmic patterns simply because I grew up inside that world. My mother, Maya Rao, was a deeply hands-on parent who took me everywhere — travelling first class on a cultural delegation to Cuba or third class to a village festival in Manipur. Dance was not separate from life; it was where life was unfolding. My mother belonged to a generation that lived dance very differently. As a young girl, she left home in search of Kathak and later returned. She stopped performing when I was born — not out of loss, but out of choice. She chose to immerse herself in motherhood, choreography, and teaching. I did not grow up watching her perform on stage, but I grew up watching how she lived — how she walked, how she handled situations, how she conducted her self. Everything she did became part of what I now call the dance of life.
I moved to Bengaluru from Del hi when I was 15 or 16. Compared to Delhi, it felt like a dull city. Yet until then, Bengaluru had also existed as an idyllic memory for me. Over time, it revealed it self as a haven of safety — liberating and empower ing. I could ride a moped, walk or drive around at 2 am, and feel secure. After moving here, I didn’t dance for five years. Eve ryone expected me to, so I chose not to. I studied man agement at Mount Carmel College and immersed my self in everything else — painting club, theatre, mad ads, journalism — but not dance. Bengaluru gave me that freedom. It became a germination ground where I could experiment, explore, and grow. It propelled my creativity and nurtured my free spirit.
In Bengaluru, you could and still can attend a temple concert in the morning and a jazz performance in the evening. There was a collision of cultures, of the old and the new. I be lieve Bengaluru allows you to breathe. When I started Bengaluru’s first contemporary dance company in 1995, it was met with scepti cism. Why contempo rary, when purists dominated the scene? But audiences re sponded. They were smaller, yes, but dis cerning. Venues were packed. People came because they wanted to engage, not just consume.

The city has changed now. There are far more events and groups, and much greater appreciation — sometimes more than is warranted. Everything receives a standing ovation. I find that troubling, because when everything is applauded, where is the space for improvement?

The idea of being a dancer has also shifted. Visibility has become central. There is pressure to build followers, to put out visuals before the work is ready. If you spend a year research ing and creating with integrity, you lose out to someone who has already flooded social media with content. I choose not to enter that race. When I dance now, I see the body as a store house of experience. As dancers grow older, those experiences deepen and enrich the work. That is why I love watching older dancers — their gravitas, their maturity. I dip into pockets of memory. I recall things my mother once told me: where to place my hand, what suits my body.

The past is not about correcting mistakes. It fuels the future. As we archive 60 years of the Natya Institute, which my mother founded, I keep reminding people that the museum is not about the past — it is about the future. Dance is like life. You walk down a street that looks entirely different now, yet memory fills it with what once was. You are in the present, constantly bridging the past. Both live together in the body.

This is how dance still lives in me.

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