At home in the world? Bharata Natyam as transnational interpreter.

This article examines dancers' practice, in Bharata Natyam, of providing a verbal translation of dance pieces before performing them. It critiques the demand for such discursive interpretation through a discussion of textual orientalism. This is the only article in print to raise such a discussion. It proceeds to consider choreographic strategies as alternative modes of translation. This essay, therefore, is one of the few in the Bharata Natyam field that looks at particular, contemporary works of choreography in detail and as a method of discussing the politics of representation within the form.