India, Oct. 24 -- One of India's most treasured dance forms, Bharatanatyam was created in the 20th century by selectively refashioning the dance traditions that preceded it. The generations of women from professional dance communities who carried it into the modern era are largely forgotten today. What explains the importance of these traditional dancers in the great South Indian temples and courts, streets and even countryside? How have some of the most recognisable features of the dance, like its half-sitting, open-kneed stance, travelled intact across time? Why were traditional dancers, who came to be known as devadasis, stigmatised? How did this dance become an upper and newly emerging middle class pursuit? The author Justin McCarthy, a teacher of Bharatanatyam, teases out the stories and revisits celebrated figures from myth, fiction and history....