GENDERED REPERTOIRE AND ABHINAYA IN THE TANJORE QUARTET TRADITION

Abstract [English]

This study examines how gender is structured within the Bharatanatyam repertoire shaped by the Tanjore Quartet and how abhinaya functions as the primary medium through which gendered identity is performed on stage. By organising the modern margam and positioning emotionally intensive items such as varnams, padams, and javalis at its centre, the Quartet shaped not only formal sequence but also expressive hierarchy. Gender in this repertoire is produced through sahitya as well as through bodily technique, timing, restraint, and emotional sequencing. The analysis highlights the centrality of the nayika, whose voice carries longing, persuasion, complaint, negotiation, and assertion, while the nayaka is framed as distant, withheld, or idealised. Drawing on aesthetic theory and devadasi performance contexts, the paper demonstrates that gender is communicated through gaze, stillness, breath control, micro-movement, and calibrated bodily articulation rather than overt narration. It further considers how the twentieth-century revival shifted abhinaya from lived social practice to institutional pedagogy, reshaping gender expression while retaining its internal emotional structure. The study argues that the Tanjore Quartet established a gendered expressive system that continues to organise Bharatanatyam performance practice.