Tandava - In Development
Tandava is an interdisciplinary performance work of dance, poetry, and sound co-created by Nova Bhattacharya and Suvendrini Lena. Inspired by the verses of 6th-century Tamil poet-saint Karaikkal Ammaiyar and shaped by the histories of the Sri Lankan Civil War, the work explores memory, disappearance, and the pursuit of justice. Through percussive movement, Tamil language, and immersive sound, Tandava examines how the body can hold and express what words often cannot—grief, resilience, and the persistence of memory.
Structured around cycles of creation, destruction, and renewal, Tandava creates a ritual-infused space for witnessing and remembrance, honouring those lost without rites or recognition. Developed through workshops, community dialogue, and evolving performances, the work invites audiences into a shared experience where ritual and performance converge to offer reflection, collective healing, and the possibility of transformation.
Creative Team
Artist Reflections
Tandava means a great deal to me because it asks dance to do something difficult: to hold sorrow, rage, beauty, and unanswered history at once. This process has asked me to consider what it means, as a choreographer, to approach histories of violence and disappearance that are beyond my own biography. While Tandava arises from a specific Tamil context, its questions of disappearance, inherited grief, and survival reverberate across many communities here on Turtle Island. My goal is to allow dance to serve as a vessel for shared witnessing and human connection by approaching the work with humility, listening, and a willingness to create from relation rather than knowing. I am honoured to work with Suvendrini and our evolving team of collaborators to manifest a space where we can hold grief and beauty together, building a ritual of witnessing.
~ Nova Bhattacharya
In 2025, Nova’s Deep End Week introduced me to this powerful project, Thandava, inspired by Karaikal Ammaiyar and the profound depth of her poetry. Her vision of Shiva’s cremation-ground dance and her spiritual journey to Mount Kailash deeply resonate within this work. In our project, Punithavathi becomes a voice for diaspora experiences reflecting the struggles and resilience of our people. As a diaspora artist from a strong Tamil background, I feel a deep personal connection. Nova’s creation, along with Suvendrini’s words, brings a meaningful new dimension for future generations.
~ Karthiha Parthiban
As the child of Tamil refugees, my relationship to Tandava is shaped by inheritance rather than direct memory. I carry the war through its aftermath - through diaspora, silence, and the gaps left by those who disappeared. This process has been a means of reconnecting with my heritage, opening new ways of understanding a history I have only known through its echoes. In dialogue with Karaikkal Ammaiyar, the work - as experienced through the creative process - allows me to engage more fully with a cultural lineage I am often distanced from by language. In that space, Tandava becomes both an act of remembrance and a way of reclaiming connection across rupture.
~ Vishmayaa Jeyamoorthy
We must bravely reflect on how our era impacts us, and profound stories must be retold. In the Tandava project, the Burning of the Jaffna Public Library triggers me to embody fire and shadow to amplify historical trauma and the dancer’s movements in the video. This compelling case study is a truly interdisciplinary, collaborative art practice.
~ Ge (Luke) Lu
Note: Choosing to move fluidly between Tandava and Thandava is an acknowledgement of the instability of language as it moves across Tamil, Sanskrit, English, colonial histories and diasporic mouths. We resist the idea that there is one consistent spelling capable of fully containing sound, rhythm, or cultural meaning.
Beginnings
Tandava is a co-creation.
Where does creation begin?
When artists meet?
When someone says, “what if?”
When an idea is shared?
But then, where did that idea begin? In the mind of an artist shaped by years of absorbing other artists, histories, music, images, grief, joy, and the world around them?
I am a dancer first. Until ideas are danced, they are intangible and elusive.
In August 2025, we spent three days in creative play joined by Louis Laberge-Côté and observed by participants of Deep End Week: Creating in Community. We dedicated a day to filming the parchment creation and burning process with filmmaker Luke Ge, while participants became shadow performers within the film. We shared work-in-process with an audience, and their response breathed even more life into this beginning.
