The Dance Form Bharatnatyam – A to Z Challenge April 2018 #DanceKaPunchnama

Hello Peeps 🙂

My letter for the Day is ‘B’

Bharatanatyam – This is one of the renowned Indian Classical Dance forms and is originated in Tamil Nadu. The dance is performed by women mainly and it is based on different spiritual ideas, religious themes etc.

How to perform this dance?

It is one of the oldest classical dance form of heritage India.The dance starts with ‘Namashkaram’ and the performer pays respect to the God (Nataraja).The main parts of this dance form is footwork, mudras and abhinaya (facial expression).

The features of this dance have either straight lines or triangles.

Instruments:

A vocalist (nattuvanars) who reciting the dance syllables and a mridangam. Additionally, violin, vina, bamboo flute, thallam (manjira) can be used also.

Costumes:

The costumes are gorgeous and colorful.

For The Women:

They wear saree but in a customized way. Different pieces of the pleated cloth stitched together to give a proper shape of a saree. But these are easy to wear hence will not create any mess during the performance. The pleated clothes hanging from the waist to knees and these are fan out attractively during the movements.

For The Men:

Men wear ankle length dhoti, in the middle part there is a pleated cloth hanging from the waist. In the upper part, there will be no garment, and male performers wear neck piece only.

Jewelleries:

The dancers wear ‘Temple Jewelry’. Armlets, wristlets, earring and necklace are the main ornaments for the dance performance.

Women wear a semi-circle (Veni) of real or artificial flowers round the bun. The most typical jewelries are ‘thalaisaman’ (headpiece), with ‘rakodi’, worn just above the flowers in the hair, and the ‘Chandrasuryan’ (moon and sun) on either side, because the head symbolizes the paradise. The ear stuffs consist of three pieces, the ‘maatal’ (chain), ‘jhumki’ (hanging earring) and the ‘thodu’, which fits on to the lobe.

The neckpiece called ‘adigai’ consists of a ‘choker’, ‘pendant’ and a ‘long chain’ with a broad Padakkam (pendant). A ‘vanki’; for the upper arm, ‘gold bangles’ for the wrist, an ‘odyanam’ or broad ornament waist belt complete the whole costume. Occasionally, the female performers wear a hair ornament called ‘sarpam’ or snake to decorate the long plait.

Ankle Bells or Ghungroo:

It plays the key role in rhythmic footwork. An anklet made of leather or rope with rows of bells.

Beginners have 1-2 rows, intermediate dancers have 3 rows and advanced dancers have 4-5 rows in the ghungroo.

Make-up for the Dance:

For the Abhinaya, make up is important for this dance form. Male and female both, draw big lines around the eyes; eyebrows are darkened and extended outwards with liner. This is to make the eye part more visible during the performance. A red dye is applied on the feet and fingertips of female performers.

Let’s check out some amazing Dance Performance here:

See what dance form I have shared for the letter ‘A’

What will be my next dance form for the letter ‘C’?

This post is in association with #BlogchatterA2Z

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Source: Indianetzone