A review of 'Do For Love': Hybrid Bharathanatyam at the V&A

On Friday 28th March, the V&A museum hosted a Friday Late, a free drop-in event celebrating contemporary art and visual culture, curated by Diet Paratha, one of the leading creative agencies showcasing the best in South Asian culture. The programme featured a range of creative showcases, but my heart was set on viewing Usha Jey’s‘Hybrid Bharathanatyam’ performance set to Tupac’s ‘Do For Love’. I was curious to witness how Bharathanatyam’s departure from temples and courtyards might evolve in an esteemed space such as the V&A.

Choreographed by Usha Jey and assisting choreographer, Thuja J, the piece featured dancers Usha, Anekha Pillai, Hashna Siva, and Araniya: a dynamic group of Tamil and South Asian artists handpicked for their skilful blending of Bharathanatyam with contemporary movement. Together, they are the heart of this piece, marking a cultural exchange that feels lived-in, embodied and within your reach. They were scheduled to perform three separate shows, with a fourth added at the last minute as over 1,000 people lined up and entry wasn’t a guarantee. I wasn’t willing to risk missing out…

Upon entering the gallery hall, a yellow-gold centre-piece adorned with detailed miniature portraits of Mughal courtly life glowed behind the dancers. It shared a resonance with Bharathanatyam’s past as both a royal and devotional form, where devadasis - custodians of the Arts trained in Hindu scriptures and mythology - would perform for members of the court and deities.

The setting of the V&A with its rich history and collections of Eastern and South Asian art, thematically aligned with the curation of Diet Paratha’s event, inviting us to consider how far South Asian art has come in transgressing its own boundaries. In that gilded setting, the aesthetics of Hip-Hop and Bharatham tell a powerful story of the fluidity and survival of diasporic peoples, that underpin both these genre’s representations.

It is no secret that Usha Jey is unorthodox in her approach to choreography. Beginning as a Hip Hop and Street Dance disciple in France before training in Bharathanatyam as an adult, her Hybrid Bharathanatyam series, a term she coined brings this dynamic fusion to the forefront and rejects institutional validation through self-defining the practise. Hip-Hop with its culture of coalescence and fluidity is a vibrant foil to Bharatham’s classical grammar. Hip-Hop - mostly thought of as a sonic phenomenon is made up of 5 key pillars involving various senses and stimuli: DJing, MCing, Breaking, Graffiti, Knowledge (embodied). An alluring yet complex set of skills that aid in self-expressing personal knowledge and asserting the resilience of diasporic identity. No neat binaries here.i

The performance begins with dancers in Araimandi, the half-seated, bent-knee stance, feet close together in an almost demi-plié position, upper torso ruler-straight, arms held tightly at chest level using traditional mudras (hand gestures) to convey symmetry and meaning. The dancers are calm and poised in elegantly pleated dark maroon sarees, with muted gold borders in traditional Bharathanatyam dress, though with some modifications: no typical faux braids, heavy jewellery or anklets - made redundant to focus the silhouette and redefine the meeting point of classical and urban aesthetics.

Eyes lined thick in obsidian kohl, amber-gold earrings glint under the lights, a tall red pottu (bindi) between the eyebrows amplifies Dhrishti Bheda (eye movement) which is a core component of expressing Bhavam (feeling). Pearly white teeth flash warm smiles, but in this case, they don’t smile for long. Tupac’s Do For Love forms the gritty underscore of experiencing an unexpected love.

Do For Love’s narrative storytelling wasn’t just a background song, it breathed with the dancers. Scholar Avanthi Meduri writes, one can consider “the Bharathanatyam dancer as a musician who uses the medium of movement in order to interpret the music.” This rings particularly true here, where every gesture seems to sculpt Tupac’s lyrics into space. Bharatham makes use of signs and symbols through mudras that dancers use to convey a storyline - a hidden language inaccessible to those not trained in its meanings. By aesthetically hybridising the form, it’s almost as if Usha abstracts and distills those feelings of love, fear and longing making them universally felt without requiring any insider fluency or particular religious and narrative grounding. It is certainly one reason for the global virality of the long-form content, with viewers calling it “TikTok premium”, a nod to its high production and impeccable style values.

The dancers translate lyrics into movement through a combination of Nritta (rhythmic motor elements) and Abhinaya (gestures, acting, stylised mimes). Sometimes a single dancer embodies the lyrics via Abhinaya and Dhrishti (eyes), while others provide a symbolic fictional landscape that forms a backdrop to the emotional expressions itself.

During the chorus, “what you won't do - do for love/ you’ve tried everything - but don’t give up”, one dancer folds into heartbreak, gently consoled by an orbit of angelic presences guiding her. It’s fascinating how each performer has a distinct choreographic script. Where do your eyes go? Which character holds your attention?

Leaving the hall, I was in total star-struck awe. Yet, despite the applause in the room, criticism quietly surfaced: dismissive claims that ‘urban music clashed with classical dance’. That’s the thing about hybridity: it unsettles purists. This wasn’t a “clash” it was a sharply poised yet clarified convergence. On the most part though, this piece had the largest volume of the night, one that truly moved the museum. A rupture. Transfixed, mesmerised looks, alert as they newly entered a world of dance that had been previously welded shut. A language of mythologised expressions and Hip-Hop’s insistency on a radical self-knowledge. I hope they remain seated for the rest of Hybrid Bharathanatyam’s spotlight on the stage. It’s about time.

It’s difficult to draw a strict binary between Bharatham and Hip-Hop here and that’s the point. The choreography resists the easy categorisation that makes cultural fusion usually so palatable. Staccato shoulder pops and chest isolations are distinctly Hip-Hop, yet the Adavus (rhythmic footwork) keep it grounded in Bharathanatyam. Silhouettes are punched through with a masculine bravado, while feet still trace the trance of devotional rhythms. You’re watching two languages speak at once - not competing, but simply coexisting.

The transitions, those in-between moments, are particularly seductive. The body enacts both styles simultaneously as Hip-Hop’s wave-like motion softens Bharatham’s sharpness. Arms at times glide like wings, then lose composure intentionally, mirroring the chaos of love that Tupac laments. Each dancer is a neuron - quick-firing, impulsive, emotive and ultimately all tuned to the same beat. To endure. To be lost. To then find one’s path again. Here, that path is love. Do for love, especially when it makes no sense.

Credits: (linked to instagram)

Choreographer: @usha_jey

Assistant Choreographer: @J.Thuja

Dancers: @apx_97 , @hashnasiva , @araniya.7, @usha_jey

MUAH: @elegancybyb , @rakshana_mua

Videographer: @muralee.co

Photography: @senthan

Editor: @gavinemishka_