CLASSICAL DANCE







Indian classical dance

The classical dance style is that you practice detachment. The body is decorated in a full-fledged manner, yet your ultimate aim is complete surrender, and to merge with the ultimate (mokshya). And mokshya can never be attained if there is an iota of material desire. Your engrossment in ethereal joy initiates your spiritual journey in the direction of the ultimate.

The body is decorated to highlight your bhava and bhangi. The body is undergoing a tremendous rigour but in your expressions there is no tiredness revealed. You may be experiencing pain but through your free floating movement you learn to bring delight to the observers. This is nothing but sadhana.

Anything that follows discipline is some form of sadhana. And here in classical dance you have a huge spectrum of rules and regulations. But the beauty is that these regulations do not bind you to something that is petty; they liberate you from all attachments in search of a higher reality. And once you start feeling in you the presence of something that cannot be explained in words, you know that your spiritual progress is on.

Your entire existence remains involved when you are performing it sincerely. What is attained through meditative process bit by bit is being done in dance uninterruptedly over a time span. And this is nothing but staying away from the self. You leave the limited self to realize its vastness. As long as we revolve around a limited circle our space gets exhausted. The moment you come out of it your space expands in all directions.

The music and the dance-bole are your mantra, which help you break away from the material world and concentrate on something that is beyond any articulation or expression. The same experience you get to see in Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge where the European boy Larry narrates it as ‘something more than human’ that prevailed in him for a moment when he had come to India in search of spiritualism and had attained the heights after he practiced as per the instructions of his Guru.

The stability that your body and mind feel after your dance practice is the prerequisite to that awakening. When you are in deep sleep without any dream you have the stability no doubt, but the awakening is not there. So it is that rare combination of peace and awakening that characteristics spiritual attainment. And the uniqueness of dance is that it creates peace in you, detaches your mind from the constraints and cleanses the track which experiences the ethereal joy. The dancer’s foot follows the drumbeat so that his existence can travel beyond the worldly limits.

Types of classical dances

Bharatanatyam from Tamil Nadu

Bharatanatyam, also previously called Sadhir Attam, is a major form of Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu. Bharatanatyam is one of the oldest classical dance traditions in India. It has been nurtured in the temples and courts of southern India since the ancient era.

Kathak from Uttar Pradesh

Kathak is one of the eight major forms of Indian classical dance. The origin of Kathak is traditionally attributed to the traveling bards of ancient northern India known as Kathakars or storytellers.

Kathakali from Kerala

Kathakali is a major form of classical Indian dance. It is a "story play" genre of art, but one distinguished by the elaborately colorful make-up, costumes and face masks that the traditionally male actor-dancers wear. Kathakali is a Hindu performance art in the Malayalam-speaking southwestern region of Kerala.

Kuchipudi from Andhra Pradesh

Kuchipudi is one of the eight major Indian classical dances. It originated in a village named Kuchipudi in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Kuchipudi is a dance-drama performance, with its roots in the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text of Natya Shastra.

Odissi from Odisha

Odissi, also referred to as Orissi in older literature, is a major ancient Indian classical dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Odisha – an eastern coastal state of India. Odissi is traditionally a dance-drama genre of performance art, where the artist(s) and musicians play out a mythical story, a spiritual message or devotional poem from the Hindu texts, using symbolic costumes.

Sattriya from Assam

Sattriya, or Sattriya Nritya, is a major Indian classical dance. It is a dance-drama performance art with origins in the Krishna-centered Vaishnavism monasteries of Assam, and attributed to the 15th century Bhakti movement scholar and saint Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardev.

Manipuri from Manipur

Manipuri dance, also known as Jagoi, is one of the major Indian classical dance forms, named after the region of its origin – Manipur, a state in northeastern India bordering with Myanmar, Assam, Nagaland and Mizoram. It is particularly known for its Hindu Vaishnavism themes, and exquisite performances of love-inspired dance drama of Radha-Krishna called Raslila.

Mohiniyattam from Kerala

Mohiniyattam, is one of the famous classical dances of India that developed and remained popular in the state of Kerala. Mohiniyattam dance gets its name from the word Mohini – a historical enchantress avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, who helps the good prevail over evil by developing her feminine powers.