Beyond the Classroom: What Paramparā Means in a Changing Cultural World

As a teacher of Bharatanatyam in the United States, one of the greatest cultural differences I have encountered is not in how students learn an adavu, memorize a jathi, or understand a piece of choreography. It is in how we understand the relationship between a student, a teacher, an artistic tradition, and the community that surrounds it.

In many Asian cultures, learning a traditional art has historically meant becoming part of something larger than oneself.

There is a beautiful word for this in the Indian classical tradition: paramparā.

Paramparā is often translated simply as “lineage” or “tradition,” but to me, its meaning is much deeper. A tradition survives because knowledge, values, discipline, and responsibility are passed from one generation to another. The student does not merely receive lessons from the teacher; gradually, the student becomes part of the living ecosystem that sustains the art.

Growing up in an Asian culture myself, this idea does not feel foreign to me. Although the terminology and customs differ across cultures, similar values surrounding teachers, elders, apprenticeship, and artistic lineage exist throughout many Asian traditions. The relationship is not understood purely as a transaction of I pay for a lesson, therefore you teach me for an hour.

There is a sense of belonging.

When the Teacher Becomes Part of the Artistic Family

When I observe traditional dance communities in India, I am often struck by how naturally students remain connected to their teachers beyond their own class.

Students come to watch their guru perform.

Senior students help junior students.

Students attend rehearsals even when they themselves are not performing.

They help backstage, assist with costumes, demonstrate movements, participate in productions, accompany their teachers to programs, and simply spend time observing.

Sometimes they come because they have been asked.

Often they come simply because they understand: this is my artistic family, and I am part of it.

The teacher's performance is not seen as something unrelated to the student's education. Watching the teacher dance is itself part of learning.

Helping a younger student is part of learning.

Sitting through a rehearsal is part of learning.

Watching another dancer struggle, improve, and eventually perform is part of learning.

Even the seemingly insignificant moments—helping organize a classroom, holding something backstage, listening while another student receives a correction—become part of one's education.

This is how an artistic culture is absorbed rather than merely taught.

Teaching Bharatanatyam in America

In the United States, I have found this much harder to cultivate.

Families are extraordinarily busy. Children may have dance, music, sports, tutoring, school activities, competitions, birthday parties, and countless other commitments.

Adults are equally busy.

Everything must fit into a calendar.

And slowly, something as profound as learning a classical art can become another appointment:

Bharatanatyam: Sunday, 4:00–5:00 p.m.

The student arrives.

The teacher teaches.

The class ends.

Everyone goes home.

Perhaps the student practices during the week. Often, practice competes with ten other priorities.

If the teacher performs somewhere, attending may be considered optional—something to do if nothing else is scheduled.

If younger students need help, an older student may not automatically think, I should go and help.

If the school presents a program in which that student is not dancing, there may be little sense that attending or supporting the event has anything to do with being a member of the school.

I don't necessarily believe this means students do not respect their teachers.

Rather, I think many simply have never been taught that learning a traditional art can involve this kind of relationship.

They have grown up within a very different cultural model.

From “What Am I Getting?” to “What Am I Part Of?”

American culture places tremendous value on independence, individual choice, personal boundaries, and individual achievement. There are many positive aspects to these values.

But traditional artistic cultures often ask a different question.

Instead of continually asking,

What am I getting from this?

they sometimes ask,

What am I part of?

That difference is profound.

When everything is organized around individual benefit, it becomes easy to evaluate activities according to immediate personal relevance:

Am I performing?

Is this my class?

Do I need this for my advancement?

Will this benefit me?

Do I have to be there?

Paramparā asks us to occasionally move beyond those questions.

Perhaps I am not performing today, but another student is—and I can support them.

Perhaps I already know this adavu, but a younger student does not—and I can help them.

Perhaps my teacher is performing an item I am not learning—but watching it may deepen my understanding of the art.

Perhaps there is nothing immediately “in it for me,” but I participate because this community has invested in me, and I also have a responsibility toward it.

That is a very different understanding of education.

Respect Does Not Mean Blind Obedience

At the same time, I do not believe preserving paramparā means reproducing every historical aspect of the guru–śiṣya relationship.

Respect should never mean that students cannot ask questions.

Tradition should never excuse humiliation, exploitation, fear, or unhealthy authority.

A teacher must also earn the trust of students through knowledge, integrity, generosity, patience, and responsibility.

There are aspects of contemporary Western education that have rightly challenged unhealthy power dynamics.

The question, therefore, is not whether we should recreate the past exactly as it existed.

The question is:

Can we preserve the beautiful parts of paramparā without preserving its unhealthy possibilities?

I believe we can.

We can preserve gratitude without demanding submission.

We can preserve discipline without creating fear.

We can preserve respect without silencing questions.

We can preserve lineage without rejecting individuality.

And perhaps most importantly, we can preserve community in a culture increasingly organized around the individual.

Bharatanatyam Cannot Be Learned Entirely in One Hour a Week

This is something I increasingly want my students and their families to understand.

Bharatanatyam is not simply choreography.

A teacher can teach the mechanics of an adavu during class. But becoming a dancer requires much more.

You learn by practicing when your teacher is not watching.

You learn by observing senior dancers.

You learn by watching performances.

You learn by listening to music.

You learn by seeing how another dancer interprets a character.

You learn by helping someone younger than yourself.

You learn by participating in rehearsals and productions.

You learn by making mistakes.

You learn by watching other people make mistakes.

And eventually, something changes.

You stop merely taking Bharatanatyam classes.

You begin to belong to Bharatanatyam.

The Role of Parents

For children especially, this culture cannot be created by the teacher alone.

A seven-, eight-, or ten-year-old child cannot be expected to independently understand paramparā, artistic responsibility, or the long-term value of disciplined practice.

Children learn what matters partly by observing what the adults around them treat as important.

When parents encourage practice, bring children to performances, allow them to observe senior students, participate in school events, and teach them to respect the time and knowledge of their teachers, they are reinforcing something much greater than dance technique.

They are teaching commitment.

Eventually, the goal is not for parents to force children to practice forever. The goal is to establish habits and values strongly enough that responsibility gradually becomes the student's own.

The Community I Hope to Build

As Nrityaarpana grows, I increasingly realize that I do not want simply to build a school where students arrive, take lessons, perform occasionally, and leave.

I hope to build an artistic community.

I want younger students to look toward older students and imagine what they might someday become.

I want senior students to understand that helping a beginner is not beneath them; it is part of becoming an artist.

I want students to attend performances not because they are forced to support their teacher, but because curiosity makes them want to see Bharatanatyam beyond their own choreography.

I want students to celebrate one another's accomplishments even when they themselves are not onstage.

I want them to understand that the art they inherit existed long before any of us and, if we care for it properly, will continue long after us.

That is ultimately what paramparā means to me.

It is not simply obedience to a guru.

It is not nostalgia for an older cultural system.

And it is certainly not about asking students to give up their individuality.

It is the recognition that knowledge creates relationships, and relationships create responsibilities.

A teacher gives something to a student.

One day, that student gives something to another.

And somewhere between those two acts, a tradition survives.

Perhaps the challenge of teaching Bharatanatyam in America is therefore not simply teaching American-born students an Indian classical dance form.

It is teaching another idea alongside the dance:

You are not only here to receive something from this tradition.

You are becoming part of it.