On June 28, as Bala Devi Chandrashekar recreated a slice of history dating back to over 1,000 years on stage, the setting couldn't have been more ideal. Before her was a packed auditorium of art aficionados and diplomats, and behind her, a mammoth projection of Thanjavur's Brihadisvara Temple — the Bharatanatyam exponent, scholar and teacher was at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, where she presented her 90-minute long production, Brihadeeswara: Form to Formless, through the Eyes of a Devaradiyaal."

The choreography was an encapsulation of her research-based approach to the classical dance form, which she combines with literature (the bol or words for the performance dip into the ancient Sangam literature), art history (the devaradiyaal, or the young girl given as a gift to the temple, is shown mesmerised by its exquisite architecture and fresco paintings), music (the production is set to the music composed by Rajkumar Bharath) and theatre (the show is scripted by PR Venkatasubramanian).