As Bharatanatyam and Carnatic music have gone global, many of the exponents of these arts lack the language skills needed to understand and interpret songs in different Indian languages like Tamil. This could be because the young performers grow up in countries such as USA, where they do not get to learn Tamil in regular school. Even in countries like India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Malaysia, many youngsters grow up without studying Tamil in school. As a result, many singers mispronounce the letters resulting in gibberish instead of meaningful words. In some cases, part of the problem may lie in following established singers, who mispronounce the words or render the lyrics incorrectly too. This has been discussed in a blog.

There are also dancers, who, out of ignorance or arrogance, choose to mutilate the lyrics of ancient poems deliberately disrespecting the authors of those ancient poems. A good performance should avoid such problems.

As young performers complete their arangettams and continue performing beyond their college/university days, they have difficulty expanding their repertoire of songs beyond what their teachers had taught them earlier. Moreover, the expertise in Tamil of those who work with performers is also not what it used to be in years past. This is the void Kalaiyaham Academy seeks to fill by bringing deep expertise in Tamil and Carnatic music to serve the needs of the dance and music community.

While we start with Tamil as our initial language offering, we hope to add other languages depending on demand.