Silambam Finds Threads of Poetic Unity in Kavya

On May 1, 2026, Silambam Houston performed to a sold-out audience at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts’ Zilkha Hall. Kavya: Poetry in Motion was produced as part of the Houston is Inspired series, a short-term residency program that gives select local artists and organizations the opportunity to utilize the Hobby Center’s technical, administrative, and marketing resources to elevate their work and connect with audiences beyond their respective networks. Silambam Houston, under the executive and artistic direction of founder Lavanya Rajagopolan, produced an evening that was a success in pushing the scope of its production capabilities and storytelling craftsmanship. 

Kavya: Poetry in Motion was a beautiful reminder that art is the unifying thread of mankind, and through poetry we can find the same human impulses and emotional responses across language, culture, and time. Kavya was segmented into six thematic sections: new beginnings, wanderlust, nostalgia, woman, loss, and inclusion, with poetry spanning the ages providing the impetus for the choreography. 

The first section opens with “Dawn has already broken,” by contemporary Estonian poet Hasso Krull. The poem illustrates the sequential pattern initiated by a new dawn: 

Dawn has already broken. Already, dawn has broken.
Branches appear on the trees. Leaves appear on the branches.
Color appears on the leaves. Tone appears in the color.
Depth appears in the tone. Softening into the depth. 

The choreography here is exquisite and makes use of elegant, moving tableaus that are accented by birdlike gestures of the hands. The compositions are ornate and romantic, suggesting a variety of vignettes that illuminate different valences of “new beginnings.” The always lovely sound of babies gurgling enters as the movement and shapes become maternal, punctuated by blooming floral motifs. The vignettes are juxtaposed against one another, with each grouping of dancers in their own world, encapsulated by their own mini-drama. The busyness of the stage does not detract from the details of the dancing; rather, it generates a handsome landscape of figures that is brought to life by a sensual, rolling energy. 

Silambam Houston is unique among classical Indian dance companies in Houston in that many of its large ensemble choreography attempts to capture the breadth of Indian dance by incorporating several distinct traditions, in this case, bharatanatyam, kathak, kuchipudi, odissi, and mohiniattam. This staging happens several times throughout Kavya, but I was excited to see a flash of contemporary flair. In “wanderlust,” set against the backdrop of twentieth-century English poet Edna St. Vincent Millary, the company’s young dancers assemble themselves in a swaying formation that echoes the poem:

The railroad track is miles away, 
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day 
But I hear its whistle shrieking.

This train travel motif appears again later in this section, but this time the swaying line appears from the back of the theater before making its way down the aisle. It’s a small detail that has a gratifying impact, and illustrates the potential for creative decision-making when artists are empowered to do so. 

While on the subject of intelligent creative choices, I found “loss” to be particularly effective in terms of stagecraft and thematic underscoring. The poems of Pablo Neruda, Rabindranath Tagore, and Swathi Thirunal are projected onto a cyclorama that descends about a third of the way from the theater’s rafters. In the foreground, alternating soloists dance the emotional trajectory of the words above. In the background, against the grand cyclorama, small ensembles pantomime the literal scenario each poem evokes. It’s a wonderful rendering of these time-honored verses, and “loss” shows that it is possible to stage these ancient traditions in new and inspiring ways. 

Kavya: Poetry in Motion is meant to play to a broad audience, but in doing so there are a few moments that seem a bit trite in comparison to other sections. In “woman,” a quartet attempts to convey the resiliency of woman to Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song.” As much as I enjoy that anthem on the radio, it simply does not carry the same gravitas as “Still I Rise” and “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou, both of which could have been explored further beyond positions and shapes that reference physical strength and endurance. 

What I enjoy the most in Silambam Houston’s productions is the attempt to convey the broad scope of Indian classical dance, which includes eight distinct traditions that developed in different parts of the subcontinent. No two look alike, and their differences are magnified to beautiful effect when danced side-by-side. A special moment in “inclusion” also illustrates the religious diversity of India, as three processions of school-aged dancers are arranged onstage in vignettes of Christian, Hindu, and Islamic worship. 

I can’t imagine the sheer challenge of attempting to represent as much of India’s material culture as possible on a single stage. The parade of spectacular costumes helps, and does much to convey the differences of the five classical dance forms represented in this production. But there are a few times, especially in the larger ensemble sequences toward the end, where the quantity of different textiles clash a bit too much, but this is a minor grievance amidst the billowing landscape of color and texture. 

Kavya: Poetry in Motion proved to be a satisfying artistic effort from Silambam Houston, recently named by the BIPOC Arts Network & Fund as a Houston Cultural Treasure. By setting such majestic dance vocabularies against the words of famous poets both foreign and familiar, Lavanya Rajagopalan asserts the timelessness of classical Indian dance forms, and the universal power of human movement.