Classical Dance of India

India has a very rich culture for dance and music. Indian Classical Dance and Music are our pride. Tribal, Folk and traditional dance style considered as the mother of all classical dance from the ancient age. Excavation, inscriptions, chronicles, literary sources, sculpture and paintings proves the evidence of dance during the Vedic time or before. However, there is no as such evidence about the transformation of present classical dance styles.

Various myths, Purans, Veda supports that dance took an important role in our religious and social life. The rich body of dramatic and poetic literature known as the nataka and the kavya in Sanskrit. A related development was the evolution of classical Sanskrit drama which was an amalgam of the spoken word, gestures and mime, choreography, stylized movement and music. From the 12th century to the 19th century there were many regional forms called the musical play or sangeet-nataka. Contemporary classical dance forms are known to have evolved out of these musical plays.

Excavations have brought to light a bronze statuette from Mohenjo-daro and a broken torso from Harappa (dating back to 2500-1500 B.C.E.) These are suggestive of dance poses. The latter has been identified as the precursor of the Nataraja pose commonly identified with dancing Siva.

Natyashastra

The earliest treatise on dance available to us is Bharat Muni’s Natyashastra, the source book of the art of drama, dance and music. It is generally accepted that 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. According to the author, he has evolved this Veda by taking words from the Rigveda, music from the Samaveda, gestures from the Yajurveda and emotions from the Atharvaveda. There is also a legend that Brahma himself wrote the Natyaveda, which has over 36,000 verses.

In “Natyasashastra” dance and music are inextricable part of drama. As per ancient history, dance have three aspects: (a) Natya (b) Nritya and (c) Nritta

Natya

the dramatic element and most dance forms do not give emphasis to this aspect today with the exception of dance-drama forms like Kathakali.

Nritya

it is expressional, performed specifically to convey the meaning of a theme or idea.

Nritta 

it is pure dance where body movements do not express any mood (bhava), nor do they convey any meaning. To present nritya and natya effectively, a dancer should be trained to communicate the navarasas. These are: love (shringaara), mirth (haasya), compassion (karuna), valour (veera), anger (roudra), fear (bhayanak), disgust (bibhatsa), wonder (adbhuta) and peace (shaanta).

I want to document the recent classical dance programme through pictures and information about the groups. Hope this document helps a lot to the future generations.

Acknowledgement: central govt.

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