Bharatnatyam

Major Styles Of Bharatnatyam   |  Musical Instrument  | Training Institutes | Famous Maestros | Tours

Dance form is often famed as poetry in motion. It is a dance that is composition of science and art ties up three elements: sentiments, melody, and rhythm. The dance form was evolved in the temples of Tamil Nadu of South India, it has rigid codes and conventions. The techniques are complex and require high skills to master them. It consists of 64 principles of coordinated hand, feet, face and body movements. The dancer has to express through movements the moods of passion, heroic sentiments, fear, anger, hatred, tenderness, laughter, amazement and peace. The song accompanied the dance is mainly religious or even erotic.

Bharatnatyam technique is quite unique form other classical dances of India. it consists of three branches: Abhinaya, Nritta, Nritya. Abhinaya is the art of story telling in the dance where dancer perform with hand gesture to convey some specific expression. Nritta is pure dance movements reflecting different timing of universe. Usually it perform in the opening of dance. Last one is Nritya, which is the combination of both dance movements and acting(abhinaya). The colorful dance form is demanding of the dancer. It require athletic skills and incredible flexibility. In some movements, body is visualized as triangles below the torso. It based on the proper distributions of body weight on the limbs, allowing the hands to cut a line . a special feature is known as padams or poems, which is based on hero heroine love theme. The tempo is slow and movements is like a poetry, finely rhythmic with each other and crystallized into specific mood of love.

Major Styles Of Bharatnatyam

Melattur Style- This style is based on expressive acting and spontaneous movements. The movement require high degree of flexibility and emphasized on sringara bhakti. It stresses on the fluid variations of patterned korvais, and dramatic characterizations.

Pandanallur Style - This style stresses on deep sitting positions and quite difficult to perform. It is a purely feminine dance style based on poetry or padams, perform in slow and rhythmic movements. It has three levels : in a deep sitting positions on the ground, movements on standing positions, and jumping and moving the body in great speed while dancing.

Vazhuvoor Style – This style break the monotony of the dance movements with soft facial expressions of subtle acting(abhinaya), the movement flow smoothly with rare abrupt movements. The dancer’s body from the waist up is slightly bent forward and leaps are introduced into every jati that creates a suspense effect.

Kalakshetra Style - This is a modern style of Bharatnatyam and a simplified form of Pandanallur style. Though the style has the hints authentic devdasis style of ancient times, it still a relatively recent introductions. It mainly focus of Angika (hand movements). The hand movements are delicately based on the words of the lyrics and placing the hand in an exact position even during narration. It is the most beautiful of all atyle of bharatnatyam.

Musical Instruments Accompany Bharatnatyam

Mridangam

A pair of cymbals

Veena

Violin

Ghatam

Flute

Some Famous Training Institutes

"Academy of Modern Dance", Kokila, Gautam, Russian Cultural Centre, Kasturi Ranga Rd, Chennai 600004

"Arangham Dance Theater", Anita Ratnam, 10 Cenotaph II Lane, Teynampet, Chennai 600018

"Academy of Arts of India", Lakshmi Viswanathan, 33, M G R Road, Kalakshetra Colony, Chennai 600090

"Tala Sruti", Raghunath Manet,Vassanty Manet, 24, Romain Rolland St, Pondicherry 605001

"Vignesh Natyalaya", Krishnamurthy V S, 32, Mettu Street, Kosapalayam, Pondicherry 605013

"Bharata Natya Kalalaya", Prema Nagasundaram, 6, Sukh Niwas, Mahul Road Chembur, Mumbai 400071

"Kalalaya Nrithya Academy", Nareshkumar R -A/205, Mhada Colony, Next to PMGP, Poonam NagarSardar Vallabhai Patel MargAndheri (E), Mumbai 400093

"Ananda Shankar Centre for Performing Arts", Tanushree Shankar, 11-F Palm Avenue, Kolkata 700019

"Udayan", Mamata Shankar, 21-A, Hindustan Road, Kolkata 700029

Famous Bharatnatyam Maestros

Uma Palam Pulendran- Uma is a renowned Bharatnatyam dancers and performed She has performed in some of the very prestigious dance festivals like "Natyanjali to Lord Nataraja"- Dance series sponsored by the Shankarabharanam Trust, Madras; Nrithya Aradhana - Dance series sponsored by the Lakshminarayan Temple, Michigan; Festival of India in Robert Ferst Performing Arts Center under the auspicious of GIACC in Atlanta and Nataraja Anjali of the Hindu Temple of Atlanta to name a few. She was also the Secretary of Atlanta Association of Bharatanatyam (AABHA Dance Inc) during 2002- 2004.

Shobana – She is a renowned actress and also a noted bharatnatyam artist. She performed abroad include those at the World Malayalee convention, in the United States in 1985 and 1995, in Kuala Lumpur before the King and Queen of Malaysia, numerous cities in the United States, Europe, South East Asia and Australia. Got many awards for her dance and also equally for her films.

Bobby Joseph - She started to learn Bharatnatyam at very early age. She is renowned for striking presentation in stage and her acting skills in dance drama. She has participated in Kalakshetra Dance Dramas and travelled all over India and abroad. Has performed in Dance Dramas as Sita in 'Sita Swayamvaram', Court Dancer in 'Jayadeva', Rathi in 'Kumarasambhavam', Parvathi in 'Kumarasambhavam' etc. She won several youth festival awards for Bharatanatyam and is a recipient of C.C.R.T Scholarship (1995) from Govt. of India.

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