Bharatanatyam is an ancient art form practiced in India. An arangetram is supposed to be a dancer's debut on stage. Traditionally, a dancer has to perform their arangetram before giving any performances. An arangetram consists of two basic elements: Nritta and bhava. The first half of the arangetram is typically the hardest. The first half consists of the nritta, or jathi pieces. The dancer performs either a pushpanjali or mallari in the beginning, sometimes an alaarippu along with it, and a jathiswaram. Then the dancer invokes Lord Ganesha in a padam or kavithvam. Then comes the hardest and most rigorous piece, the Varnam. The Varnam is a piece that can last almost 30- 45 minutes. The Varnam combines swaram, jathis, and bhava. The next half of the arangetram has mostly bhava pieces, the most important is the Shiva padam. The shiva padam combines both nritta and bhavam along with several difficult poses. We always end with a thillana, a solid nritta piece. Then the dancer thanks the audience, the musicians, the Lord, and the guru in the mangalam.

A dancer is trained to express the nine navarasas with ease. The dancer should literally change into the character they are portraying. Bhava is more complicated than nritta, as nritta consists of jathis, which are easy but tiring.