Dance

"Being a part of the culture and knowing the language are very essential for any Indian classical dance. For Odissi, you need to read, write and speak Oriya. You also need to understand Odissi classical music, Sanskrit, myths and epics in Hinduism. You must experience Jagannath culture, be familiar with Orissa's history, its legends and myths. You must be able to immerse completely in the local culture to be a good dancer."

"Odissi dance lives on in the ancient temple sculptures and friezes of the State of Orissa on the eastern coast of India. Neglected in this century, it has been less well known and less practiced than Bharata Natyam."

"The dance experience is an interface between person and culture."

"The Konarak temple represents the period when dance and architecture reached a point of climax in history and followed a sharp decline when Islam and later colonialism affected the culture and arts due to the changing religious and political scene of the state. Odissi dancers in the temples were considered prostitutes and when British rule came in to effect the performance of Odissi as a religious ritual was completely banned from the temple. For 200 years Odissi dance faced the most draw back until it was in the 1950s when the country was in the process of regaining its national identity after its independence in 1947."

"The community which played the greatest role in popularizing this art--by giving it a news spirit, a new hope and horizon--was the community of the temple maidens or Devadasis. Devadasis or Maharis used to practice this dance form and used to perform it before the lord as a form of prayer or ritual. At first, only some Mantras accompanied their Nrutya. But after Jayadev composed the Geeta Govindam, thus incorporating abhinaya in dance form, the grace of this dance form got revived."

"The new form of Odissi had its old historic roots yet it had changed to conform to the changing cultural trends of the people during the 1950s-60s. Earlier it was bound within the religious doors of the Hindu temples but upon its revival it became a more public or secular form of art and was performed on stage world wide."

"When the dancers had only the static sculptures of the temples to recreate Odissi, their task was to design the movement from stance A to stance B in a way designing the in-between space or the transition from one gesture to another, which can be likened to the process of moving through a temple or going down a stepped well and experiencing the different threshold to reach the destination."

"Indeed, the Odissi seen today is the result of a continuous life long effort made by some Gurus and dancers of Orissa."

"Samjukta Panigrahi along with her guru Kelucharan Mahapatra, is credited with reviving the all but extinct Odissi dance, an ancient Indian performance form from Orissa state. Odissi is solo form that combines music, song and a style of dance that includes a rich choreography with mudra hand gestures similar to those in other Indian genres such as Kathakali and pantomimic movement to convey complex narratives of love, personnel sacrifice and humankind’s relations to the gods."

"The Odissi dancer Samjukta Panigrahi...carried the heritage of an ancient art form revived in her body. Her artistry was based on the teaching of her guru Kelucharan Mahapatra, her ability to give physical form to the ancient carvings of temple of temple dancers on the walls of the temples in Orissa, and the transformation of the Natyashstra’s performance rules into the odissi dance form."

"Odissi dancers use their heads, busts, and torsos in soft flowing movements to express specific moods and emotions."

"In Indian Odissi dance, the performers’ body must be curved like a ‘S’ which passes through the head, shoulders and head. The principle of thribhangi sinuosity is clearly visible in all classical Indian statues…"

"All the technique of the dance is based on a division of the body into two equal halves according to a vertical line which passes through it , ad on the unequal distribution of weight, some times more on one half of the body, some times more on the other half."

"Odissi is the only dance today in which practicing artist still use the term [bandha] to mean a separate follow the strictest egory of dance sequence. These follow the strictest possible rules of movements, some time producing acrobatic postures."

"When we compare the bandhanrtta found in Nartananirnaya with the bandhanrtta practiced in the Odissi style, we find striking similarities. The bandhanrtta of Nartananirnaya requires combination created out of a base of sixteen karanas or short dance sequences, the bandhanrtta of Odissi requires seventeen. These karanas are extremely difficult to perform because of the physically demanding nature of their constituent movements and their rigorous design. As a result they are not commonly practiced."

"We want to dance, we love the Indian dance because it gives joy, but we must remember that there should be integrity and reverence."

"Straight lines don’t exists in Odissi. In contrast to the other classical Indian dances…take the position of tribhangi, the characteristic position of the Odissi style, made from three curves of the body with the torso displaced in the opposite direction to that of the waist and the head."

"Odissi has emerged as a sculpturesque dance in which the head, bust and torso move in soft flowing movements to express specific moods and emotions."

"After the exercise of the feet and the legs, the head and eyes, one learned the hand gestures, the mudras or hastas. There are 28 basic gestures for one hand and 24 basic gestures for both the hands....Each hand gesture has its own use."

"[That we learn] 15 types of jumps and 15 types of pirouettes and the four basic body positions on which the style is based, and 36 foot positions. Each position, gesture, or movement has its own technical name..."

"Then there are the different ways of walking. [We have] sixteen types of walks – for example like a warrior, a lady, a man…learn many animal and bird movements."

"In the Odissi syle [we have] many different steps in the basic position called chauka, which means square, and the same amount in the position called tribhanghi, when the body assume three curves."

"The steps are practices according to the rhythm"

"There are four movements of the torso: deflecting to the left, to the right, in, and out, and the fifth is around in a circle."

"Odisha located on the eastern sea coast of India is a place where the highly lyrical form of Odissi has evolved. On the temple walls of Bhubaneshwar, Konark and Puri, the Odissi dance sculptures are clearly evident. This dance style combines both Tandava and Lasya. Odissi has become as a classical dance form only in the last 60 years, but one can trace the dance style that prevailed in the region of Odisha and Bihar in the days of the Natya Shastra."

"After having learned all the elements of the dance and the nine emotions, once the technique is mastered [we must] continue to practice it so as not to worry about it when we are on stage dancing."

"The aesthetics and the artistry of Bharata Natyam alike make us realise that sringara has pride of place here. In a sense, Bharata Natyam is a combination of the yoga and mantra sastras. The mudras of the mantra shastras are the same as the hand gestures of Bharata Natyam."

"In the Sabdam, emotions are withheld at the beginning; thereafter, when the dancer has clarified herself, they are released in a measured and disciplined manner. It is after, mastering this discipline that she dances the Varnam which is a living river that holds together movement and interpretation."

"The Bharata Natyam recital is structured like a Great Temple. We enter through the Gopuram (outer hall) of alarippu, cross the Ardha mantapam (half-way hall) of Jatiswaram, then the Mantapa (great hall) of Sabdam, and enter the holy precinct of the deity in the Varnam. This is the place, the space that gives the dancer expansive scope to revel in the rhythm, moods and music of the dance. The Varnam is the perpetuity which gives ever-expanding room to the dancer to delight in her self-fulfillment, by providing the fullest scope to her own creativity as well as to the tradition of the art."

"In the beginning, Alarippu, which is based on rhythm alone, brings out the special charm of pure dance. The movements of Alarippu relax the dancer’s mind and thereby her mind, loosen and coordinate her limbs and prepare her for the dance. Rhythm has a rare capacity to invoke concentration. Alarippu is most valuable in freeing the dancer from distraction and making her single-minded."

"It is this stream of sringara that swells into the mighty river of the lover-beloved songs of the Vaishnava and Saiva saints, the Ashtapadi of Jayadeva and the compositions of Kshetragna. In Bharatanatyam, too when it comes to abhinaya, sringara has been the dominant mood."

"In Silappadikaram, eleven dances are referred to, which were danced by divinities like Siva, Tirumal (Vishnu), Muruga, Kama, Kali, Tirumagal (Lakshmi) and Indrani. They depict the destruction of various demons and symbolize the triumph of good over evil. This is evidence enough that dance was a divine art whose theme was the destruction of evil and the purification of the spirit."

"...there is nothing in Bharata Natyam which can be purified afresh; it is divine as it is and innately so. The sringara we experience in Bharata Natyam is never carnal; never, never. For those who have yielded themselves to its discipline line with total dedication, dance, like music is the practice of the Presence. It cannot be merely the body’s rapture."

"Traditionally Bharat Natyam has a close affinity to the floor and pull of gravity. The body “sits” in a demi pile position and energizes itself through rhythmic contact between feet and ground."

"...Bharatanatyam is a medium for depicting an illustrative anecdote of Hindu religious themes and spiritual ideas emoted by dancer with excellent footwork and impressive gestures. Its performance repertoire includes three main elements, nritta, nritya and natya. ‘Nritta’ is a technical performance where the dancer presents pure Bharata Natyam movements emphasizing speed, form, pattern, range and rhythmic aspects without any form of enactment or interpretive and emotional aspect. In ‘Nritya’ the dancer communicates a story, spiritual themes, message or feelings through expressive gestures and slower body movements harmonized with musical notes."

"It becomes a momentous occasion, therefore, when someone emerges showing the restraint and spirituality of approach required to retain the essential quality of an art that took its birth with a sage."

"...the fillip given to such ancient traditional forms as the Sadir, Bhagavata Mela, Kuchipudi, Kathakali, and Yakshagana by the revival movements in the country, has not been wholly to their advantage. Often, indeed we find corrupt tendencies and outlandish tastes...insinuating themselves … ostensibly in order to make the art fashionable."

"The dance tradition and its package deal debut have become points around which Indian families rally to guarantee the continuity of Indian values, to reconfirm their Indianness to themselves...and to prepare their daughters to enter middle class Indian-American life."

"[This] refined dance form became and remains perceived as the form that ‘encapsulates the phenomenon and depth of the spiritual and artistic heritage of India'."

"The introduction of the Shiva as the central deity to the form, a god who incinerates impurity introduced to Bharata Natyam, a modality quite outside that of devadasi dance, a dance preoccupied with cataloguing the infinite shadings of feeling in love."

"Rukmini Devi Arundale was an invaluable contributant to the rebirth of Bharata Natyam as an accepted dance form, removing the unpleasant eroticism of dasi attam, and like Queen Santala of the eleventh century, showing that dance is a means of expression for all and is a true form of beauty."

"Bhrata Natyam dancers, like Western dance modernists, strove to validate dance, describing it as a “high” autonomous art that expressed creativity and engaged with serious intellectual and philosophical concerns. Dancers in India, as in the West, validated their performance practice by emphasizing the originality of their work while also drawing on historical sources for their enquireis."

"The revival of Bharat Natyam therefore depended not only on politics, but also on the ability of practitioners and promoters to articulate their understanding of the dance form’s history."

"Raja Srfoji II (1798-1832), the Maratha ruler of Thanjavur rendered a unique service to Bharata Natyam from a different angle. Thanjavur is considered to be the home of Bharta Natyam and the art was at its peak during his time...Serfoji wrote chain compositions in Marathi for use in dance dramas in the Bharata Natyam style and many of these padams and abhinaya padams are intended for choreography."

"Maharaja Swati Tirunal of Travancore (1813-1847) wrote 67 padams in Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada and |Malayalam and he introduced them in Bharata Natyam performance by artists patronized by him in his own state. His padams have a rare literary flavour and the padams of this composer are becoming increasingly popular in the Bharat Natyam field…"

"Several Telugu composers settled in Tamilnadu for generations produced padams."

"Bharat Natyam’s immediate predecessor was sadir, primarily a solo dance form practiced by devadasis, courtesans affiliated to temples and courts as performers and ritual officiants."

"...in the period from 1923 to 1948, known as the Bharata Natyam revival. Performers, critics, and promoters through Bharata Natyam to the urban proscenium stage, recontextualizing and renaming it. In doing so they crafted a genealogy in which Bharat Natyam came to represent ancient tradition and critical experimentation, nationalism, regional identities and the global transference forms outside of geographical and cultural boundaries."

"Bharat Natyam transcends national and cultural boundaries yet remains resolutely tied to them. It circulates globally but operates as a symbol of exotic."

"At the beginning of the twenty first century, the global status of Bharata Natyam renders the form even more visible."