While classical dance forms like Bharatha Natyam are commonly described as “poetry in motion”, they are also seen as instruments of translation. When a dancer selects a piece to present, the intellectual rigour with which she analyses context and characterisation is rival only to a literateur’s review of poetry or prose. She then has the responsibility of translating the words she reads into movement. She decides which gestures and postures are apt for her interpretation of the form, and thus creates her own poetry of movement in the process. Hence, where do dance and poetry meet to find common ground? Our texts mandate that Natya is essential to Kavya and vice versa, but how do we define their relationship to each other? How can we understand the symbiosis and the parallels in these concepts through the practice of dance in history?