Looking to the program notes for guidance, together with the introductory narration over the loudspeaker before each composition, in Sanskrit, Ānanda means “the place in which one finds bliss,” with the distinction being that bliss is not an emotional response or state, but rather a place. A place of deep consciousness of our very existence, the place in which you find joy. To Gurusamy, that place is found through performance and dance, in what he describes as a mixed bag of show pieces that he particularly loves and bring him, and, by turn and flutter, those that join him, a lot of joy. Orchestrated in the traditional way to set and format practice, inlaid with Gurusamy’s own story, upon a pathway to joy, my head spins with information and awe. One moment Gurusamy is describing Rupaul’s Snatch Game meets the ‘he said, she said’ drama of The Bold and the Beautiful, and the next I am seeing two indigo-hued birds upon his shoulders, cast by the blue stage lights above. Held in a ring of warm light, Gurusamy’s shadow-birds flitter across his kneeling form, and this melding of nights, worlds, experiences and time is breathtaking as about the theatre, sparks of joy flicker like gold from twelfth century texts. 

Bharatanatyam, a form that came from the gods, “has a lot of temple ancestry and religious ideas”, explains Gurusamy, but on “the other side of the coin is human expression and human love. It deals with physical dance, but it also deals with emotions. These emotions are displayed through the use of the face, body, and hands”[2] in that order. For though the hand gestures, be they fast, pointed or drawing a vertical line downwards to describe ‘in this time,’ are mesmerising, look to the subtleties of the face first, if you want to understand what each composition is imparting. It is there, in the face, and it is from there that it flows through to the body and finally the hands.