Muskan Bhatia, New Delhi . In a world that spins ever faster, she moves in slow, meditative circles. Each gesture is deliberate, each glance softened by centuries of tradition, and by the personal battles she has weathered. For this legendary Mohiniyattam artist, the dance is not just an art form. It is a refuge, a compass, and, in her words, “the medium that allowed me to be me.”
“I felt its power very early,” Vijayalakshmi, world-renowned Indian classical dancer, said as she recalled her first encounters with the dance at the tender age of 11.
As a teenager, navigating turmoil at home, she sensed that Mohiniyattam held something extraordinary. “Its slow, meditative movements calmed me. They aligned perfectly with who I was, a peace-loving, contemplative person.”
What began as solace soon became self-discovery as the entire act reflects inner self of her . Initiated into Transcendental Meditation at the age of 12, she found that the dance deepened her inward gaze.
What began as a source of solace soon became a journey of self-discovery, with the entire performance reflecting her inner world. Having been initiated into Transcendental Meditation at the age of 12, she discovered that dance further deepened her inward gaze.
“It helped me connect to my inner core, peaceful, feminine, in harmony with everything.” Her relationship with Mohiniyattam is inseparable from her feminism. “I’ve been a feminist from the moment I was born,” she laughed, before adding more seriously, “I have zero tolerance for women being diminished.”
Her feminism, she explains, both shaped her art and was shaped by it. Mohiniyattam’s mythological anchor, the story of Vishnu transforming into Mohini, is often misunderstood as mere seduction. She rejects that interjection. “It’s not the dance of some enchantress. It’s the celebration of divine femininity, one that elevates consciousness,” she asserted.
So when she encountered patriarchal texts embedded in older traditions, she refused to perform them. “Why should I dance something that diminishes women? I simply will not,” she told the .. Her rebellion led to her first groundbreaking choreography, Unniyarcha, based on the true story of a 17th-century warrior woman from Kerala, transcending the traditional boundaries and evolving into a novel form. A new Mohiniyattam was born, one that honoured heritage, but through the eyes of a woman with agency.
Her innovations only grew bolder. At 14, she began touring internationally. Exposure to global conversations and art forms opened her aesthetic vocabulary. In 1987, a visit to the U.R stirred something deep, intense and transformative enough for her to create an entire Mohiniyattam production based on Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. It eventually took her to the Bolshoi Theatre, a historic first for an Indian classical dancer.
Talking about why she experimented with new ideas within Mohiniyattam, Vijaylakshmi said, “For me, stereotypes are death. If I get bored, how will the audience be excited?”. The constant is her fierce belief that art must speak truth, especially the truths women are told to hide.
Her institute in Delhi and Los Angeles draws students from varied backgrounds, but the deepest reactions come from Western women. “They say, ‘Thank you for reminding me I’m a woman.’ Many believe becoming masculine makes them strong. I tell them the opposite, your power is in your femininity.”
She speaks of a 60-year-old participant in Florida with severe arthritis who insisted she couldn’t stand or sit comfortably. Ninety minutes later, she completed the entire workshop, then glowed. “That is the power of Mohiniyattam. It heals from the inside.”
A new documentary, featuring the two generations of women from her family, celebrates this legacy. Though not from Kerala, her Tamilian grandmother, mother, and now her own daughter have all walked parallel artistic paths. Her grandmother, now 101, once travelled the world with her, singing for performances. “She’s incredibly gutsy,” the artist added fondly. “She shoved Carnatic music down my throat, and thank God she did.”
Her mother, a towering figure in the art, faced personal struggles and cultural resistance of being a non-Malayali taking up Kerala’s sacred dance form. “She faced enormous pushback,” the artist told. “But she persisted. And because of her, I learned how to fight too.”
As she prepared for a performance hosted by the India International Centre a day later, on 28 November, that will also include a personal address to young women leaders, she hinted that she will share stories she has never spoken aloud. “Awards are wonderful. But my biggest reward is performing for women, especially the young ones. If my journey can give them strength, that means more than anything.”
In her presence, Mohiniyattam stops being a relic or a ritual. It becomes what she always believed it to be: a quiet rebellion, a chant of healing, a reminder of feminine power: divine, unhurried, unstoppable.
—. MBJ .
