Indian Dance
Early History of Classical Indian Dance
The dancing girl from Mohenjodaro, the broken torso suggesting a dance pose from the Harappan civilization, the metaphors and similies based on dance that exist in the Vedas, the reference to dance in the ancient Indian epics. There is an enormous amount of evidence to suggest that Indian classical dance existed and in fact influenced sculptural and literary traditions from about 2nd century BC to 19th century AD. The Natyasastra, the famous treatise of dance and drama, could only have been written in an environment in which these art forms were in existence and thriving. The history of Indian dance begins with this detailed text.
The history can be broadly divided into two periods: the first between 2nd century BC to 9th century AD, and the second from 10th century AD to 18th century AD. During British rule dance want into a coma. In the first period, Sanskrit played an important role, and there was a strong link between dance, music, sculpture, literature and drama. Dance was so enmeshed in other art forms that there was no separate text on dance, until the Abhinaya Darpana was written. From the 13th century onwards there were manuals on dance emerging in various regions of the country. What emerged from these manuals is interesting – they all subscribed to the basic principles of the Natyasastra, but yet, distinctive regional styles emerged with ultimately differing native vocabulary. This period (1300AD-1800AD) marked the beginning of the classical Indian dance styles that we know today, namely Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Manipuri, Odissi, Kuchipudi and Kathak. Forms such as Chhau, Koodiyattam and Yakshagana could in due course enter the classical classification.
Impact of British Rule
When the British entered India, classical dance was an important part of temple worship and dancers known as Devadasis were employed in temples to perform ritual dances during important festivals. Gradually this system deteriorated into dance being performed for the pleasure of priests and kings. Devadasis carried the stigma of prostitution. Labeling it as prostitution, the British abolished this system without offering an alternative source of livelihood to the dancers. Hence in British India the practice and development of danced was curbed. The generation that attended schools founded by the British was isolated from the art traditions of the country as the colonial system of education did not recognize art as a subject for the curriculum. By the 20th century, the art of dance had died, and what was left was called “nautch” in North India and “sadir” in the South.
Recovery and Export
In the 1930s, dance was brought back into Indian society through the efforts of individuals such as Muthulakshmi Reddy, E.Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi Arundale. A couple of decades later, dance began to travel from India to other parts of the world. Artists such as Uday Shankar and Ram Gopal were instrumental in taking the dance forms out into the world. Gradually, practitioners around the world began to allow influences of their locales into their dance forms, and so today while many practitioners preserve the dance form in the way that it has been handed down to them, making minor modifications, there are others who are allowing radical changes to happen in their forms. A new era has been ushered in with the export of the dance forms, especially Bharatanatyam and Kathak, to various parts of the world.
Classical Indian Dance Styles
In the Indian context, both dance and drama were fused into one at a very early stage of development. By the time the Natyasastra was written, both art forms were consciously conceived as one. And so the techniques governing the technique of Indian dance are the same as those that govern the technique of classical drama in India.
Classical Indian dance is divided into three distinct categories, namely natya (corresponds to drama), nritya (gesticulation when it is performed to words sung in a musical melody) and nritta (pure dancing where the movements do not express any mood or meaning). In Indian dance, the human body has been conceived of as a mass which can be divided equally along a central median. When the weight is equally divided, the completely balanced samabhanga position emerges. In poses where there is only one deflection, the abhanga position emerges. When there are more than two deflections on opposite sides of the central median, the tribhanga position emerges.
While most of the styles are rooted in the basic principles, there are certain characteristic features that distinguish one form from the other.
Click below to read more about each dance style
Contributed by Nirmala Seshadri 03 January 2007
References:
T.S. Parthasarathy (1991), “Dances of India”, Journal of the Music Academy, Madras
T.S. Parthasarathy (1992), “Dances of India: Bharatanatyam”, Journal of the Music Academy, Madras
Kapila Vatsyayan (1974), “Indian Classical Dance”, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India
