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 When all roads lead to Chidambaram - Alarmel Valli, The Hindu, March 11, 2021  The Hindu weekend online interview with Akhila Krishnamoorthy 7 May 2020  In conversation with Sudha Raghunathan 2 May 2020, 6.30pm  Alarmel Valli - SPIC MACAY Global Connect Series Streamed live on Apr 25, 2020 My mother is my Rock of Gibraltar - narthaki.com, 27 April 2016 Classical dance reaffirms beauty, truth, and harmony (Interview) - Enid Parker, City Times (Khaleej Times), 3 Mar 2016 Indian dance virtuoso Alarmel Valli: 'We forget that art can be humanly and spiritually correct' (Interview) - Afshan Ahmed, TheNational, 3 Mar 2016 The art is infinitely greater than you - Rupa Srikanth, The Hindu, 1 Oct 2015 Ein Körper singt zur tanzenden Musik - Von Verena Schweiger, Salzburger Nachrichten, 27 Jul 2015 
Existential and Erotic, Like a Flower Yielding to a Butterfly Utsav, a Festival of Indian Dance and Music Ms. Valli has a keen instinct for gesture. Even in the pure-dance sections of the works, the way she stretches her arms into space - behind! round! across! diagonally! - has a thrusting, communicative force. In dramatic sequences, she gives herself over to the imagery with complete clarity, intensity and focus: the butterfly, the breeze, the flower; the god, the woman, the companion; the lament, the hero, the death. - Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times, 23 Sept 2014
"Alarmel Valli - a creative genius, who effortlessly combines art and its aesthetic articulation. The creative medium and the artist appear intertwined in an everlasting relationship. She has captured the imagination and senses of audiences world wide, with her inimitable style of dance that further bolsters the beautiful dance form of Bharatanatyam." - Economic Times, Chennai
"In Valli, music and dance meet in such a state of harmony that we are confronted with the sublime. Her dance speaks to the soul and requires no analysis" - Midday, Bombay
"Valli enchants the initiated and the uninitiated alike - What is it that sets her apart? It is her ability to infuse beauty into whatever she creates, to transcend mere grammar and technique, to invest it with poetry and joy, giving dance an added dimension as it were. Her dance becomes 'abundance' - 'Sampurna', an uplifting experience" - The Economic Times, New Delhi
"In her movement, a new vocabulary is born - a language of form that is not contrived but grows out of her as plants grow. Images of life and fulfillment captured in a moment, leave us floating in free association of thought, with fleeting emanations and hypnotic symbols. This unique combination of the infinite, the tangible and the fantastic gives her dance a unique appeal. ....a doyen of the Pandanallur tradition, Valli stands out as the most exquisite practitioner of her style - her musicality, her intuitive understanding, give her dance a new idiom. With a free flow of imagination and a close relationship between movement and music her repertoire expands into space, grows and gathers itself into energy and life..." - Jyoti Nair Belliappa, Deccan
Chronicle, Chennai
"Her dance is the victory of genius over technique. Superbly poised, she stands among the few great dancers of the world. It is only after seeing Valli perform that one begins to see the myriad moods and nuances of Bharatanatyam - as the dancer flits across the stage, magnificent, mercurial and breathtaking" - Hima Devi, Midday, Bombay
"Valli a diamond in art ... whose art unfolds in a sort of ecstatic mood, in which the performer and the viewer seem to flow in the same stream of consciousness". - The Hindustan Times, New
Delhi
"Alarmel Valli, a living poem of grace and beauty, who, with a glance or gesture, enraptures and makes poets of us" - Indian Express, Bombay
"Valli's dance vibrates with her romance with the laya, every moment of its duration. There were moments when the dancer looked as if she was soaring on the laya like a bird, while during her execution of the jatis we had once again the romantic experience of seeing abstract tala given a bodily form, in those finely carved movements of hers" - Evening News, New Delhi
"Alarmel Valli has become a legend. She is Bharathanatyam personified. In a manner, she breathes, thinks and walks the dance. One can only marvel at her grace and vivacity, at her prodigious skill in choreography - matching the most graceful adavus to the most intricate of rhythms, and the prowess of her Abhinaya. She has developed and perfected the conservative Pandanallur tradition to such an extent that it can justifiably be called 'Valli Natyam'. " - Subbudu, The Statesman, New
Delhi
"Was it some optical illusion or was there more than one Alarmel Valli performing on the stage?".... The programme organized by the Delhi Tamil Sangam saw this intrepid soul of Bharathanatyam dance with an extra dynamism, which left her audience marveling at her brilliance and virtuosity, with sculpted postures...skilled footwork, both powerful and graceful....vivid and convincing abhinaya. The Thillana was a coup in terms of laya and tala and movements, which earned this dancer's style the epithet 'Valli Natyam'." - N K Mudgal, Evening News,
New Delhi
"Classical fragrance in Bharatanatyam cannot be evoked unless it is linked to tradition, with the artistic strength born of genuine involvement. It is this sense of identification which enables the dancer to evolve a style which is in tune with tradition and enables her to capture vividly the beauty of the culture of the past and exhibit it as a vital force in the present. By the excellence of her Bharatanatyam on Sadas day, at the Music Academy, Alarmel Valli established that individual style and tradition can be mutually enriching......." - NM Narayanan, The Hindu,
Chennai
"Valli dances with a natural ease that transcends the tedium of technique......Besides the chiselled adavus, and the joyous jathis, the charm of Valli's dancing stems from her understanding of music which allows her to give the items a fuller treatment. Her body lives up to her name, and like a creeper moulds itself to the music's nuances, cadences, and crescendos......" - Times of India, Bombay
"The curtain went up and all thought vanished, as a fairy flitted on to the stage- Ariel freed by Prospero...an Apsara perhaps? It was Alarmel Valli. The evening passed in an ecstatically joyous experience of melody, movement and rhythm, patterned in a seamless mesh. Every movement was stylised, but ever so expressive. A fluid grace ran through the dances like a dream of beauty. The final piece came through as a celebration of the joy of dancing, an eloquent salute! Did anyone say that tradition was in danger? Perish the thought! With a dancer like Alarmel Valli, it stands proud..." - Indian Express, Madras
".......What is it that sets her apart?....But then why does she score over others? Why does her dance give joy to the onlookers? Why does one walk back home from her performance with a spring in one's feet?....Like a poet who knows grammar but also knows how and when to break the rules for innovations, inventions and creativity, Valli, well-versed in the technique and grammar of Bharata Natyam, succeeds in creating lyrical beauty.... Valli danced her way into the hearts of those lucky to witness her........" - Economic Times, Bangalore
".......It seemed Valli's energetic impulses were taking one to a world of endless beauty and creation. Alarmel's dancing is not restricted to her physical person. A light breeze of joy suffuses her audiences as well. With her items, Bharathanatyam unfolded in its splendid form. Alarmel's recital was a revelation. ....." - Amrita Bazaar Patrika,
Calcutta
".........Her Bharata Natyam recital in the Pandanallur style, recreated for the space of a couple of hours an edifice of majesty, integrity and shimmering beauty, such as the very name of the style's greats, like Vidwan Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai or her guru Chockalingam Pillai evokes." - Shanta Serbjeet Singh,
Hindustan Times, New Delhi
"A few days ago the Tata Theatre was set aflame with the unique, radiant, brilliant talent of Alarmel Valli . True, she performed in the Bharata Natyam technique, but she made the old art live again, by reanimating it with the breadth of contemporary life.....There is a melody in the perfect movements of her arms and harmony in the elasticity of her torso. In the space of a few seconds, she awakens and releases such a whirl of rhythms that one can only sit and marvel at the wealth of musical beauty which the artist's body contains....... Her dances have in them that which speaks to the soul and requires no analysis." - Hima Devi, Midday
".....In Valli's performance, her tantalizing neck movements, the flicks of the arms...and imperceptibly curvaceous turns of the waist, interact with such precision and perfection, with the twists and turns of the rhythm that they dramatize both the abstract rhythm and the physical movements of dance, making a very strong visual impact on the viewer....Alarmel Valli's expressional dance is as much powerful in its impact, as her technical virtuosity in the realm of movement and footwork...." - NK Mudgal, Evening News, New
Delhi
International "Alarmel Valli is one of the greatest dancers in the world.......With her, music becomes dance, and dance flows like music..A transfigured body takes shape - her arms become multiple, her flesh musical, her hands fluid like the wings of a butterfly, her feet agile and sonorous...... Imagine an instant, when one or another sculpture of the Chidambaram Temple starts moving! We would then know the secret of Alarmel Valli's Bharatanatyam - an instant in eternity." (Translation) - Daniel Conrad, Telerama,
Paris
"Valli's dance, is movement as pure joy... An Alarmel Valli or Suzanne Farrel can literally embody, infinite subtleties of the emotions, intricacies of design, glimpses of the Divine. They can, momentarily at least, wrench order out of chaos". - Gisele D'Andrea, Minneapolis
Tribune
"Valli holds the stage with the presence of a Nureyev and the professionalism and technique of a Baryshnikov." - Montreal Gazette
"Now, as always, there are many gifted dancers in India, but Alarmel Valli is a paragon. Alarmel Valli is that rare thing - the solo performer who puts all others out of mind." - John Russel, former critic,
New York Times
"Valli - A Living legend from age-old India. At one time she was a poem whose lines flowed on as delicately as the soft breeze, at another she was a vigorous wind in passion, soon to return to her quiet tenderness. The movements of her body spoke louder than words. Human feelings of all kinds were crystallised in the bends and curves of her body." (Translation) - Mehdat Assem-Al Akbar, Cairo
"To call Alarmel Valli the Prima Ballerina of Bharatanatyam is indeed not inappropriate. As part of the Hammoniale Festival at Kampnagel, she executed to perfection, masterpieces of this classical Indian dance form...Even the angels could not have danced more beautifully...When she dances, the age-old Bharatanatyam gains eternal validity." (Translation) - Monika Fabry, Hamburg
"Though she has extended the frontiers of this basically religious dance, her great charm and expertise span a period of over 2000 years, without profaning the art in any manner. And wherever she dances, whether it be the courtyard of temples, modern theaters or concert podiums, the Indian Gods, who themselves are represented as dancing, seem always to hover lovingly over her presentations." (Translation) - Jochen Schmidt, Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung
"The way India's art can unite the sacred and the secular was memorably demonstrated in the solos that Alarmel Valli danced last Sunday night at St. Mark's Church.....Her arms rippled like gently flowing rivers. When she sustained poses, they had a sculptural dignity. No matter what she did, she was lovely to behold. Yet even as she enchanted the senses, this Indian dancer made one aware of divine as well as human beauty....." - Jack Anderson, The New York
Times
"And who has ever seen an arm turn and form angles with such consummate grace! Valli's dance combines virtuosity and depth with captivating dynamics. But never will you find the aesthetics of the artificial, loose itself in the lower domain of realistic and naïve expression. With Alarmel Valli, the great feelings of love, rage and happiness remain sublime, while she changes from mature woman to young girl. For goddesses inhabiting the earth know no age." (Translation) - Eva-Elizabeth Fischer,
Suddeutsche Zeitung, Munich
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