Navarasa Unplugged: Vinay Kumar’s ‘Breath-Taking’ Masterclass at IFFI

By Pickle November 22, 2025

Vinay Kumar’s IFFI masterclass revealed how ancient breathwork and body wisdom can decode modern emotions—transforming both stagecraft and self-awareness.

IFFI 2025 played host to a truly transformative session as renowned theatre practitioner Vinay Kumar K J—Artistic Director of Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Arts Research and disciple of the legendary Veenapani Chawla—led a riveting masterclass, “Breath and Emotion: A Masterclass on Performances.” The event, held at the festival and inaugurated by Prabhat, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, quickly transcended the usual lecture format.

Vinay erased the boundary between speaker and audience, stepping off stage to invite direct engagement—posing questions, listening, and turning the hall into a live laboratory of shared discovery.

He opened with a challenge to the audience’s assumptions: emotion, he argued, is neither fixed in time nor universally understood. What moved us generations ago may leave us untouched today, thanks to ever-evolving cultural conditioning. The real breakthrough? Vinay’s assertion that our bodies—not just our brains—are at the heart of emotion. Every gesture and movement, he explained, is learned and performed; nothing is purely instinctive.

The masterclass’s most striking idea was that breath, not the mind, controls our emotional and physical states. Each inhalation and exhalation creates shifts in bodily pressure and muscularity, setting the stage for emotion—well before we ever “think” about how we feel. A steady 72 bpm heartbeat, Vinay suggested, represents emotional equilibrium; deviations can signal depression, fear, or excitement, revealing that emotion is a physiological phenomenon first and a psychological one second.

Drawing on ancient Indian knowledge systems, Vinay highlighted how Ayurveda and early Indian physicians saw emotion as a matter of internal rhythm and circulation, long before neuroscience caught up. Yet, today’s hyper-complex emotional environments challenge the body’s natural limits, making such ancient wisdom more relevant than ever.

Vinay then brought the Navarasa alive—demonstrating how each of the nine classic emotions has its own unique breath pattern and muscular response. He drew attention to the subtle, often-unseen rhythms of communication, from a listener’s nod to a speaker’s expressive hand, all orchestrated by breath-led cues.

Interactive demonstrations and exercises punctuated the session, ensuring the audience didn’t just hear about the body’s hidden language—they felt it. By the end, participants left with a deeper, practical understanding of how breath, body, and emotion intertwine—a revelation for performers and anyone curious about what makes us human.