Love, in Indian classical dance, is rarely confined to romance. It can be an expression of devotion, a mother’s tenderness for her child, the ache of separation or the longing for the divine. From the eight archetypes of heroines, each embodying a distinct emotional response to love, to mythological tales of Krishna and Yashoda, Prahlada and Narasimha, and Nala and Damayanti, dance draws on a rich repertoire of stories to explore human relationships and spiritual yearning.
This expansive idea of love takes centre stage at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art’s (KNMA) Annual Festival 2026, curated by veteran dancer Leela Samson. Following previous editions dedicated to theatre and music, this year’s festival brings together 14 performances, including six special commissions, spanning classical and traditional dance forms.
Scheduled from October 15 to 18 at Sunder Nursery, the festival opens with Chenda Melam, a traditional percussion ensemble from Kerala, followed by ‘Anaṅga Raṅga’, featuring veteran practitioners Swapnasundari, Madhavi Mudgal, Kalamandalam Balasubramanian, Bragha G. Bessell and Vaishali Trivedi. The day concludes with Ānanda-līlā, a Manipuri Maharaas presentation by the Anjika Society Manipuri Dance & Movement Therapy.
Across four days, the programme draws on literary classics, mythology and mysticism. ‘Śṛṅgāra-manjarī’, presented by Kalamandalam Balasubramanian and his group, retells the story of Nala and Damayanti through Kathakali. ‘Kādal’, an excerpt from Tallapaka Timmakka’s 15th-century Telugu poem Subhadrā-kalyāṇam, which recounts the marriage of Arjuna and Subhadra, brings together Kattaikkuttu practitioners led by P. Rajagopal and Hanne M. de Bruin.
The festival also explores love as spiritual seeking through ‘Milan’, inspired by the life and poetry of Punjabi mystic Piro, and ‘Anurākti’, a contemporary work by Mumbai-based choreographer Jahnavi Sheriff and her group, drawing on Akka Mahadevi’s vachanas.
On the final day, ‘Bhakti’, rooted in Kerala’s Theyyam tradition, presents the story of Kathivanoor Veeran, associated with love and sacrifice. The festival concludes with ‘Basanta Anurāga’, an Odissi presentation led by Dr Aruna Mohanty and the Orissa Dance Academy.
Excerpts from an interview with Leela Samson:
1. Why did you choose love as the central theme of this year’s KNMA Festival, and what makes dance an apt medium to explore it?
Love is an obvious choice. It is a universal feeling and one that is being replaced by feelings like suspicion, mistrust and even hate. Dance is a consummate art form that includes the all-important aspect of the word, verses, poems, stories in multiple languages. It also includes the element of music. And then it has its own varied vocabulary of movement, expression, rhythmic impulses and drama. What more can you ask for?
And I hope the performances go beyond ‘performance’ and leave us with the wondrous nature of love in all its dimensions and expressions.
2. How did you curate the line-up to bring together diverse dance forms while encouraging artists to explore new ideas and stories?
It was a huge challenge to include all forms of dance, from the rustic to the classical, from across multiple languages and dancers who represent different time spaces. I wanted the dancers to express themselves in their authentic forms, but to challenge themselves with new ideas, languages and unknown stories.
Live performance is tangible and delicate, momentary and eternal, impulsive and deliberate. There is nothing that you can compare to it. It is almost divine.
3. How did you approach representing diverse dance traditions while respecting their distinct histories and cultural contexts?
I did not have to do much, but be attentive to the diversity; and be super sensitive to the limitations and huge possibilities of these forms and those who practice them.
4. What kind of institutional support do dancers, especially those practising less commercially visible forms, need today?
They need the kind that always sustained them from the village and temple venues of our country; as well as the new-age support that institutions like the KNMA represent.
5. How do you create space for contemporary interpretations of traditional dance forms without losing sight of the histories and cultural contexts that give them meaning?
Every artist has within himself that opportunity and vision. Their sensitivity is what I looked for and found in the artists chosen for this festival
6. How has your understanding of dance and its ability to communicate evolved over the decades?
Hugely grown. I have grown with all my personal experiences, but also with understanding ‘the other’. Not just understanding or tolerating the other, but actually falling in love with ‘the other’.