INDIAN CLASSICAL DANCE

                       CLASSICAL DANCE 

      

Indian classical dance or shastriya nritya is an umbrella term for various dance performance arts rooted in hindu musical theatre styles. Dance in india has a rich and vital tradition dating back to ancient times.

Excavations, inscriptions, chronicals, geneologies of kings and artists, literary sources, sculpture and painting of different periods provide extensive evidence on dance. In literature, the first references come from the vedas where dance and music have their roots. 

Bharatmuni's natyashastra, the source book of the art of drama, dance and music.The date of the work is between the 2nd century B.C.E.-2nd century C.E. , The natyashastra is also known as the fifth veda. 

Natyashastra evolved  from vedas -

  1. Taking words from the rigveda.
  2. Taking music from the samveda.
  3. Taking gestures from the yajurveda.
  4.  And taking emotions from the atharvaveda.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              ASPECTS-                                                                                                                                        According to natyashastra, these are two basic aspects of insian classical dance.
  • LASYA
  • TANDAV                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Lasya denotes grace, bhave , rasa ans abhinay. it is symbolic to the feminine features of dance an an art form. Tandava is symbolic to the male aspects of dance and has more emphasis on rhythm and movement.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       As per ABHINAYA DARPAN (5th-4th century B.C)                                                                         Nandikeshwara's famous treatise on dance, broken into three basic elements-                                                                                                                                                                                                    
  • NRITTA- It refers to the basic dance steps, performed rhythmically but devoid of any expression or mood.
  • NATYA-It means dramatic representations and refers to the story that is elaborated through the dance recital.
  • NRITYA- It refers to the sentiment and the emotions evoked through dance, including mudras in the dance.

RASANUBHUTI- THE 8 RASAS

This is the ultimate aim of these dance forms. natyashastra speaks of eight rasas they are as following---
  1. SHRINGAR- LOVE
  2. HASYA- HUMOROU        8. KARUNA-SORROW
  3. RAUDRA-ANGER
  4. VEER- HEROISM
  5. BHAYANAK- FEAR
  6. BIBHATS- DISGUST
  7.  ADBHOOY- WONDER.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Later abhinav gupta added a ninth one shant-peace.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Classical dance are all about technicalities and strict rules. Acharya nandikeshwara's 'Abhinaya darpan', and Sharangdev's 'Sangeeth ratnakar' (nartanadhyaya), along with natyashastra forms the foundation of technicalities of all the classical dance forms (which includes their body movement, rasa, bhava etc.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               There are nine classical dances as recognized by MINISTRY OF CULTURE , government of india. but THE SANGEET NATAK ACADEMY recognizes only 8 classical dane.                         these are------------------------------------                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              BHARATNATYAM (tamilnadu, southern india)                                                                                MANIPURI ( manipur, north-eastern india)                                                                                        KATHAK ( northern india)                                                                                                                  KATHAKALI (kerala, southern india)                                                                                                MOHINIATTAM ( kerala, southern india)                                                                                          ODISSI ( odisha, eastern india)                                                                                                          KUCHIPUDI (andhra pradesh, southern india)                                                                                  SATTARIYA (assam, eastern india)                                                                                                    CHHAU (odisha, jharkhand,west bengal, eastern india) this dance form not recognized as a classical dance of india by sangeet natak academy.
  8.                                                         (8 classical and 8 rasas)
                                                                                                                                                                   
                                  

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