Photo: Sri Nataraja is depicted in this Bharata Natyam dance-drama.
Bharata Dance & Allied Arts presented A Thousand Years’ Journey – Story of Stolen Gods at Cowell Theater in San Francisco in March 2026. The production brought alive the contemporary issue of murtis (sacred statues) that have been stolen from India and brought to the West to be displayed in museums. This unique production depicts the tale of a sacred Nataraja murti journeying from temple to theft, exile, and auction, revealing devotion, loss, and the search for where it truly belongs.
Choreographed by Ganesh Vasudeva, this original Bharatanatyam dance-theater production follows the life of a thousand-year-old bronze Nataraja from Tamil Nadu, tracing its passage across a millennium through devotion, displacement, and rediscovery.
The work opens in a New York auction house, where the statue comes alive and begins to narrate its own story — from its creation through the lost-wax casting process and consecration as a living deity, to centuries as a silent witness to the lives of villagers, kings, priests, dancers, lovers, and seekers who found meaning in its presence.
As history unfolds, the murti experiences both reverence and rupture: social hierarchies, colonial disruption, and ultimately its theft from the temple and entry into the global art market. Transported across borders and stripped of context, it is transformed from an object of worship into an object of value. Through evocative movement, original music, narration, and multimedia, the production explores the emotional, cultural, and spiritual consequences of this journey, asking what is lost when sacred art is commodified and displaced.
At its heart, A Thousand Years’ Journey is about relationships — between people and the divine, memory and identity, and art and belonging. Blending classical Bharatanatyam vocabulary with contemporary storytelling, the ensemble brings to life a deeply human narrative of devotion, injustice, resilience, and the enduring search for home.
San Francisco-based choreographer Ganesh Vasudeva, the Artistic Director of Bharata Dance Company, is a Bharatanatyam dancer, researcher, and choreographer. He has studied with distinguished gurus in India and California and performed nationally and internationally at venues such as the Erasing Borders Festival, Drive East, India Habitat Center (New Delhi), Hampi Utsav, The Nehru Center (London), and with Oakland Ballet. His productions — Life of Pi, Boys Don’t Dance, Conversations with Cupid, Bharata – A Quintessential Male Dancer, Manasaa – A Man, A Manifest, and Romancing the Gods — have been acclaimed for blending classical rigor with contemporary themes.
[Reprinted by courtesy of India Currents]
