Chapter 11 — Pan Indian Dance Forms

India has hundreds of dance traditions, but eight are widely recognised as its major classical forms, including by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the national academy for music, dance and drama:

All eight share roots in the ideas of the Nāṭyaśāstra and later texts, which is why they all use hastas, abhinaya and codified postures. Yet each grew in a different region, with its own language, music, temples, costumes and stories, so each looks and feels unique. Four of them come from South India, one from the north, one from the east and two from the North-East, which shows how widely the classical tradition spread.

Every classical form combines two kinds of dancing that you learnt about in earlier classes:

• Nṛtta — pure dance: rhythmic footwork, patterns and movement for their own beauty, without telling a story.
• Nṛtya — expressive dance: using hastas, facial expression and body to convey meaning, emotion and story.

A third term, nāṭya, means dance-drama, where several dancers play characters in a story, as in Kathakali or Kuchipudi dance-dramas.

How to watch a performance well: before it begins, find out the name of the form and the item. While watching, note (1) the basic posture, (2) the footwork — is it stamping, gliding or springing? (3) the costume and jewellery, (4) the instruments you hear, and (5) whether the moment is nṛtta or nṛtya. Afterwards, write three lines about what you saw and felt.

Building a dance matrix: as you study the next eight topics, fill a chart with these columns: Dance form, Region, Basic posture, Footwork, Specialities, Costume, Music. By the end you will have your own one-page guide to India's classical dance.

Bharatanatyam comes from Tamil Nadu in South India. It is known for its geometric lines, crisp and strong footwork, precise hand gestures and detailed facial expression. The dancer uses rhythm, music and emotion to tell stories, often about gods and devotees.

Basic posture: the dancer sits halfway down with knees bent outwards and heels together, in a position called aramandi (also ardhamandi or ayatamaṇḍala). The legs form a diamond shape. The spine stays straight and the arms are often held out at shoulder level, making the body look like a set of clean triangles and lines.

Movement: the basic units are called aḍavus, small combinations of footwork, posture and arm movement learnt in sets. Feet strike the floor flat, on the heel or on the toes, in exact rhythm. A traditional recital, the mārgam, moves from pure-dance items such as the alārippu and jatiswaram, through the long varṇam that mixes nṛtta and nṛtya, to expressive padams and a fast closing tillāna.

Bāṇis (styles): Bharatanatyam has many teaching traditions called bāṇis. The Thanjavur, Pandanallur, Vazhuvoor and Mysuru bāṇis are especially well known, and many others add to the form's richness.

Costume: a stitched silk costume with pleats in front that open like a fan when the dancer sits in aramandi, gold-coloured temple jewellery, ankle bells (salangai), and red ālta on the hands and feet to make gestures visible.

Music: Carnatic music, with a vocalist, mṛdangam (drum), flute or violin, and the naṭṭuvanār who recites rhythmic syllables and plays small cymbals.

Eminent figure: C. V. Chandrashekhar, a celebrated performer, guru and choreographer.

How to try it safely: practise aramandi against a wall first. Keep the knees directly over the toes, back straight, and do not sink lower than is comfortable. Hold it for ten seconds, rest, and build up gradually.

The word Kathak comes from katha, story, and a kathak was a storyteller. The form grew in northern India, with strong roots in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Storytellers once narrated tales from the epics in temples and village squares, using gesture and rhythm; over centuries, in the courts of kings and nawabs, the form became highly refined.

Basic posture: Kathak dancers stand tall and upright in sama sthāna, with the feet together or in a slight V-shape. Unlike the bent-knee stances of many southern forms, the legs are mostly straight.

Movement: Kathak is famous for:

• Tatkār — intricate footwork in which the dancer strikes the floor with flat feet and heels; with dozens of ankle bells (ghuṅgharū) on each ankle, the dancer can make the bells ring softly or loudly, singly or in rushes.
• Chakkars — swift spins, sometimes many in a row, ending in a sudden still pose.
• Delicate hand gestures and subtle facial expression, especially in storytelling items called gat-bhāv.
• A dialogue with the tabla player, in which the dancer's feet answer the drum's patterns.

Gharānās (schools): the Lucknow, Jaipur and Banaras gharānās, and the Raigarh tradition from Chhattisgarh, are especially renowned. Lucknow is known for grace and expression, Jaipur for powerful footwork and complex rhythm.

Costume: long, flowing dresses such as the anarkalī or a lehenga with a dupatta, in fabrics typical of northern India; men wear a long kurta-style angarkhā and churidār.

Music: Hindustani classical music, with tabla or pakhāvaj, harmonium or sārangī, and a singer.

Eminent figure: Sitara Devi, a dazzling performer known for her energy and speed.

How to try a chakkar safely: spin on the heel of one foot while the other foot pushes around. Fix your eyes on one point and whip the head round last (spotting) to avoid dizziness. Start with one or two spins and stop if you feel giddy.

Kathakali is a dance-drama from Kerala. Traditionally it was performed only by men, who played both male and female roles. It is like a grand, colourful play in which the actor-dancers tell stories from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas without speaking; singers at the back sing the text while the dancers act it out through hastas, facial expression and powerful body movement.

Styles: two broad styles are recognised, the northern vadakkan and the southern thekkan.

Basic posture: a deep, grounded stance with the knees bent outwards and the feet placed wide apart, resting firmly on their outer edges. This stance is related to the atimaṇḍala posture. It gives the dancer a strong, rooted look suitable for heroes, gods and demons.

Make-up and costume: Kathakali is famous for its painted faces. The colour tells the audience the type of character:

• Pacha (green) — noble heroes and gods, such as Krishna or Arjuna.
• Kathi (green with red marks) — proud, arrogant villains such as Ravana.
• Thadi (beard) — red beard for evil, fierce characters; white beard for divine beings such as Hanuman.
• Minukku (soft yellow-orange) — women and sages, gentle characters.

Dancers wear huge skirts, heavy jackets, ornaments and tall crowns. The make-up can take several hours.

Expression: every part of the face is trained — eyebrows, cheeks, lips and especially the eyes, which are exercised daily so they can move quickly and expressively. Combined with strong poses, the effect is dramatic.

Music: loud drums such as the chenda and maddalam, cymbals, a gong (chengila) and two singers.

Eminent figure: Kalamandalam Gopi, a celebrated actor-dancer known especially for his noble pacha roles.

Try it: sit in front of a mirror and practise moving only your eyes — left, right, up, down, in circles — slowly, without moving the head. Blink and rest between rounds; stop if the eyes feel strained.

Kuchipudi takes its name from the village of Kuchipudi in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh. The village has been home for generations to families of dancers, such as the Vempati, Vedantam and Bhagavatula families, who preserved and handed down the tradition. Today it is danced across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and the world.

A dance-drama tradition: Kuchipudi grew as yakṣagāna-style dance-drama, performed by troupes of men who played all the roles, including women's. A famous early dance-drama is the Bhāmākalāpam, about Satyabhama, associated with the saint-composer Siddhendra Yogi. Later, solo items were developed and women began to dance it, and today most performers are women.

Special features:

• Vāchika abhinaya — spoken word. Unlike most classical forms, Kuchipudi dancers sometimes speak or sing dialogue while dancing, which gives it a theatrical feel.
• Quick, light footwork, leaps, hip movements, sculpture-like poses and changes of speed.
• Tarangam — in a famous item, the dancer performs on the rim of a brass plate, sometimes with a pot of water balanced on the head, showing remarkable balance and control.

Basic posture: similar to Bharatanatyam's aramandi but less deep, giving Kuchipudi a lighter, bouncier quality.

Costume: silk costumes stitched for free movement, with a special front drape called gochi kaṭṭu, and traditional temple jewellery.

Music: Carnatic music, with mṛdangam, violin, flute and vocals, often in Telugu.

Eminent figure: Vempati Chinna Satyam, a great guru who choreographed many solos and dance-dramas and trained hundreds of dancers.

Comparing with Bharatanatyam: both are southern forms using Carnatic music and similar costumes, but Kuchipudi is quicker, more playful and dramatic, uses spoken word, and sits less deep. Remember this when filling your dance matrix.

Safety: plate-dancing is an advanced skill learnt under a teacher; do not try it at home. You can safely practise the idea of balance by walking slowly along a straight line drawn on the floor, heel to toe, keeping your gaze level.

Manipuri is the classical dance of Manipur in North-East India. It is soft, gentle and flowing. Movements are smooth and rounded, almost gliding, and the dancers look calm and peaceful. Where Kathak and Bharatanatyam ring with footwork, Manipuri is quiet: dancers do not wear ankle bells and avoid hard stamping.

Roots: Manipuri draws on the ancient Lai Haraoba festival of the Meitei people, in which dance is offered to the local deities, and on the Vaishnava devotion to Krishna that spread through Manipur from the eighteenth century.

Main parts of the repertoire:

• Rāsa Līlā — dances showing Krishna, Radha and the gopis, performed by groups of women in graceful circles.
• Saṅkīrtana — devotional singing and dancing with cymbals (kartāl) and drums, often as part of temple and life-cycle rituals. Manipuri saṅkīrtana is inscribed on UNESCO's list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
• Pung cholom — a spectacular dance in which male dancers play the pung (drum) while leaping, spinning and even jumping, showing great skill and coordination.

Movement and posture: the feet are usually kept close together, steps are taken lightly on the ball of the foot, and the body sways in figure-of-eight and circular paths. The face is restrained and serene; emotion is shown through the whole flow of the body.

Costume: the women's potloi (sometimes spelt poloi) is a stiff, cylindrical, richly decorated skirt with a fine veil over the head and elegant jewellery. Men wear white dhotis and turbans, especially in pung cholom and rāsa performances.

Music: the pung drum, cymbals, flute and songs, often in Manipuri and Brajabuli.

Eminent figure: Guru Bipin Singh, a great guru and scholar who researched and systematised Manipuri dance.

Try it: walk in a slow circle on the balls of your feet, knees soft, letting the arms float in a wave. Aim for no sound at all from your feet. The quieter your steps, the closer you are to the Manipuri quality.

Mohiniyattam is a graceful classical dance from Kerala. Its name joins Mohini, the enchanting female form taken by Vishnu in the Puranas, and āṭṭam, dance — so it means the dance of the enchantress. It was traditionally performed only by women and is a fine example of lāsya, the soft, graceful mode of dance, in contrast to the vigorous tāṇḍava of its Kerala neighbour Kathakali.

Quality of movement: Mohiniyattam is soft, flowing and full of expression and devotion. The upper body sways gently from side to side, like palm fronds in the breeze or the waves of Kerala's backwaters. Steps are delicate and gliding, and the whole style feels lyrical, like a sung poem.

Levels: dancers move between low and middle levels using positions such as aramaṇḍala (half-sitting), chaturamaṇḍala and atimaṇḍala, but always with softness rather than sharp angles.

Traditions: two main teaching lines are well known: the Kalamandalam style, from the Kerala Kalamandalam institution, and the style shaped by Kalyanikutty Amma, a pioneering dancer who helped revive the form in the twentieth century.

Costume: a white or cream saree with golden borders, called kasavu, traditional gold jewellery, and hair tied in a bun to the left side and decorated with jasmine flowers. The plain colours make the soft curves of the movement stand out.

Music: Carnatic-style music, often in the slow, meditative sopāna style of Kerala temples, with songs in Malayalam or Manipravalam (a mix of Malayalam and Sanskrit), and instruments such as the maddalam, edakka, flute and veena.

Eminent figure: Kalamandalam Leelamma, a respected guru and performer.

Comparing two Kerala forms: Kathakali — male, dramatic, heavy make-up, loud drums, vigorous tāṇḍava. Mohiniyattam — traditionally female, gentle, white-and-gold costume, soft music, graceful lāsya. Writing such contrasts in your matrix helps you remember both.

Try it: stand in a gentle half-sit and sway the upper body slowly left and right in a figure-of-eight while breathing calmly; keep the hips quiet.

Odissi comes from Odisha in eastern India. It is one of the clearest examples of dance and sculpture feeding each other: many of its postures can be seen carved on the temples of Odisha, such as the Sun Temple at Konark and the temples of Bhubaneswar and Puri. Dancers in the twentieth century studied these carvings to reconstruct and refine the form.

Two older streams: Odissi grew from the dance of the Maharis, women temple dancers (devadāsīs) who danced in the service of Lord Jagannath, and the Gotipuas, groups of young boys dressed as girls who danced outside the temple. Both streams fed into modern Odissi.

Two signature postures:

• Chauka — a square, half-sitting stance with knees bent outwards and feet apart, arms often held in a square; it is strong and masculine in feeling and associated with Lord Jagannath.
• Tribhanga — the body bends in three places: the head tilts one way, the torso the other, and the hip the first way again, forming an S-curve. It is graceful and feminine, and is the pose of many temple sculptures and of Krishna playing the flute.

Movement: smooth and flowing, with slow turns, sculpturesque poses, graceful steps and a characteristic independent movement of the torso.

Costume: saree-style costumes of traditional Odisha silk such as pattasāri, with stepped, fan-shaped pleats; silver filigree jewellery (tārakasi work from Cuttack); and a flower-like headpiece called the tahiya, made of white pith or flowers, set around the bun.

Music: Odissi music, with the mardala drum, flute, sitar or violin, and songs often from Jayadeva's Gīta Govinda, the twelfth-century Sanskrit poem about Radha and Krishna.

Eminent figure: Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, who began as a Gotipua dancer and became one of the main architects of modern Odissi.

Try tribhanga: stand on both feet, push the right hip out, let the torso lean left, and tilt the head right. Check in a mirror for the S-curve. Keep the movement gentle — it is a curve, not a twist of the back.

Sattriya comes from Assam. It was created as part of the devotional movement led by the saint, poet and playwright Srimanta Sankaradeva in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He founded monasteries called sattras, and the dance — performed inside them as an offering to Krishna and as part of his one-act plays, the Aṅkīyā Nāṭ — takes its name from them. Sattriya was recognised as a classical dance form by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 2000.

Performers: for centuries it was danced by celibate male monks of the sattras, called bhokots. In the twentieth century it moved out of the monasteries to the public stage, and today women and men of all backgrounds learn and perform it.

Movement: Sattriya combines strong and gentle movements. It tells stories through realistic actions such as eating, fighting or showing love. Dancers generally use the upper body for expression and the lower body for rhythm.

Two basic postures: purusha (male), strong and wide, and prakriti (female), gentle and graceful — the purusha pāk and prakriti pāk you met in the last chapter.

Training: students build their body through a set of sixty-four basic exercises called māti-ākhorā (literally, ground exercises), which develop strength, flexibility and the shapes of the style.

Repertoire: group patterns such as the snake-like sarpa formation, and dances such as the sutradhārī nāch (the dance of the sutradhāra, the narrator of the play), the gopī nāch (dance of the gopis), the Krishna nāch and others.

Costume: made from Assamese pāt silk, woven with traditional local designs, with ornaments; dhoti- or skirt-style garments recall what the monks wore.

Music: Borgeet (devotional songs composed by Sankaradeva and his disciple Madhavadeva), the khol drum and cymbals (tāl).

Eminent figure: Rasheswar Saikia Barbayan, a monk-dancer and guru honoured for preserving and teaching Sattriya.

Try it: practise a simple ground exercise from a deep, wide purusha stance: lower slowly, hold for four counts, rise for four counts, keeping the back straight. Stop if the knees hurt.

Classical dance survives because it is handed from teacher to student, often over many years. In the twentieth century, several dancers and gurus revived, refined and spread these forms. Knowing a few of them helps you understand that each style has a living history.

Many of these artists received national honours such as the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and the Padma awards. Today, a new generation of young professional dancers performs these forms in India and abroad, often mixing traditional training with fresh ideas.

How to research a dancer:

• Find their name, form, guru and region.
• Note two or three important works or contributions.
• Watch a recorded performance, from an official or trusted source, and describe one moment you remember.
• Write what you admire and one question you would ask them.

Learning from a local dancer: with your teacher's help, invite a dancer from your region — classical or folk — to perform and run a short workshop. While watching, list which parts were nṛtta and which were nṛtya. Then learn a few steps from them. Thank them properly and write a short reflection afterwards.

Completing your dance matrix: now fill the last column of your comparison chart with the name of one guru for each form. Check every row for region, posture, footwork, specialities, costume and music. A complete matrix is an excellent revision tool and a good project to display in class.

Beyond the eight classical forms, India has countless folk and community dances. They grow out of the beliefs, rituals and daily life of particular communities, and they bring colour and rhythm into work such as sowing, harvesting and celebrating. Each has its own story and history. Though they have changed over time, folk forms are flexible, which has helped them survive industrialisation and city life.

Nagaland is home to around thirty traditional dances of its many communities.

• The Ao Naga celebrate Moatsu Mong in May, a time of joy and rest after the hard work of clearing fields and sowing seeds, with songs, dances and feasting. Tsungrem Mong, held around harvest, gives thanks to the Supreme Being with colourful costumes, songs and dances. Ao clothing distinguishes commoners from warriors.
• The Sumi perform an energetic war dance to celebrate victory, and Lotha women perform a harvest dance during the Tokhu Emong festival.
• Other dances include the Sangtam war dance, the Hornbill dance, Chang Lo and the Butterfly dance.
• Sangyusang Pongen of the Ao community received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for his work in preserving these dances.

Chhattisgarh has a vibrant culture closely tied to nature.

• Panthi — danced by groups of men of the Satnami community in formations, to the mandar drum and jhanjh cymbals.
• Gaur Maria — of the Bison-Horn Maria community of the Bastar plateau, danced by men and women at births and marriages, the men wearing headgear with bison horns.
• Karma — performed to honour Karma Devi during the harvest.
• Suwā (parrot dance) — performed by women in a circle around a parrot figure during harvest and Diwali.
• Gedī — of the Gond people, danced on bamboo stilts.
• Mamta Chandrakar, a Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee and Padma Shri recipient, has worked to preserve and promote the folk song and dance of Chhattisgarh.

Other folk dances worth knowing include Bihu of Assam, Phāg of Haryana, Rouf of Kashmir and Kaikottikali of Kerala.

Respectful learning: when you learn a community's dance, ask about its meaning and occasion, learn from its own practitioners where possible, wear costume items respectfully, and credit the community when you perform it.