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Dance and music are
all-pervasive in India, bringing colour and sound to festivals and
reaffirming the faith of the people in their heritage. Religion,
philosophy and myth cannot be divorced from their art forms in
India. Dance and music are tied inextricably to ceremony.
Weddings, births, coronations, entering a new house or town,
welcoming a guest, religious processions, harvest time are all
occasions for music and dance, which in this country demand a
spirit of devotion and total surrender. A sincere practice of the
arts can achieve the highest spiritual experience.
Bharata
Natyam | Kathakali
| Odissi and
Kathak |Manipuri
|
Traditional
Dance | |Kuchipudi
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Bharata
Natyam :
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 Bharata
Natyam is Tamil Nadu's most celebrated art form, a tradition
that demands of the dancer a detachment from wordly ties, a
sublimation of the self to the deity and her art. Such
devadasis, "Servants of God", carried a temple
tradition forward, until patronage shifted to the hands of
the landed aristocracy who branded them prostitutes.
Bharat Natyam is a dynamic, earthy and extremely precise
dance style. It is built upon a balanced distribution of
body weight and firm positions of the lower limbs, allowing
the hands to cut into a line and to flow around the
body.
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Kathakali :
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 Kathakali
is the most developed dance drama art of India. In Kerala,
the drums roll, beckoning an audience to a spectacle most
magnificient. Here, the actors depict characters from the
Puranas and Mahabharata - superhuman beings, demons and
ordinary people.
The dancers, all male, adorn themselves in huge skirts and
headdresses, wearing vivid green make-up and cheek
extensions. Dialogue is combined with dance to bring myth
and legend vividly to life in the temple courtyards of
Kerala. So strong is the identification of the dancers with
the characters they play that they display an incredible
level of histrionic skill. Their eyes are riveting.
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Odissi and
Kathak :
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 The
ambience of Orissa, the philosophy of Lord Jagannath and the
sculpture of the 13th-century Sun Temple of Konarak, are
reflected in the dance form - Odissi. Perhaps the most
lyrical style of dance in India, Odissi follows unique body
norms; the iconography of a whole culture is echoed in its
structure. The tribhanga, a three-bend posture, interlinking
a people's philosophy with the physical, is a series of
triangles which are not only physically difficult to
execute, but which also call for immense restraint and
finesse on the part of the artist.
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The Kathak (storyteller) of yore was a versatile
actor-musician-dancer who addressed himself directly
to his audience, throwing a web of verse and verve over
them. Involved and complicated footwork and rapid pirouettes
are the dominant and most endearing features of this style.
Traditionally the dance of the courts, Kathak reflects a
simplicity and vigour that is visually most attractive.
Companies of dancing gypsies toured with Kathak dancers in
the late 1990's to highlight similarities with Spanish
flamenco.
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Manipuri :
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 Protected
for years in a valley of exceeding beauty, Manipuri is the
art expression of every man, woman and child of Manipur. The
musical forms of that culture reflect the worship of Vishnu.
It is around episodes from his life that the faith of the
people is entwined. Manipuri is not aggressive. It is tender
and almost reticent on the one hand, and extremely vigorous
on the other. A continuity of movement and a restraint of
power are underlying features of the style.
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Traditional Dance :
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 Indian
dance forms take their themes from the Hindu pantheon and
from a variety of folk legends. Vishnu, the Protector, in
his 10 incarnations, is perhaps the most popular
deity-depicted in classical Indian dance. His consort in
Lakshmi, goddess of beauty and wealth. She reappears as Sita
and Radha, consorts to two of his later incarnations. Rama,
Vishnu's seventh incarnation, is celebrated, along with his
consort Sita, in the epic Ramayana, a rich source of themes
and anecdotes for presentation in Indian dance. Another
popular incarnation is the colorful Krishna, beloved of
Radha, and charioteer and counsellor to Arjuna.
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Kuchipudi dance
of Andhra Pradesh :
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