14
/ Aug. 2014
COVER STORY
Indian
DANCE
through
ages
Contents
By PRANAAME BHAGAWATI
Danseuse/Photo Courtesy: Sarbani Nandy
Dance
is an ancient art form that very much
influences the society and also gets
influenced and prone to social norms at the
same time. As a temple art, especially meant
for the purpose of offering to Gods, Indian
classical dances have traversed varied time
frames of being possessed with royal honours
to undergoing social stigmas; struggling with
its existence whilst spreading its vitality with
structured
curriculum
and
recently
globalizing it with similar or contemporary art
forms.
In India, there are many ancient temples and
historical monuments that prove the age old
relation of not only humans but also of the
Gods with dance. Dance here is considered to
be sacred and is believed to be a creation of
the God. Many carved statues and idols of
Gods and Goddesses depicts moments of
dancing and playing musical instruments
like the dancing Nataraja, Goddess Saraswati
playing Veena, Lord Ganesha playing
Mridangam, Lord Krishna playing flute, etc.
According to many mythological and
legendary scriptures, it was the spiritual
beings that practiced dance art form in
Heaven and later it came to earth. The myths
and legends related to the origin and
emergence of Indian traditional dances
emphasizes on its sacredness and divine
origin.
The Vedic Scriptures, mention about
personalities like Nat, Nartak, Sutradhaar,
Gayak, Plavak, Sadasya, Sabhasad, etc.
which establishes with evidence that, these
characters used to be present and be part of
the rituals (Yatha – Yogya). According to
Kalidasa’s ‘Malavikagnimitra’ there used to be
dance competitions in the Gupta period
wherein there were people who used to
assess the dancers’ talents, qualifications
and disqualifications and at the completion of
the whole presentation, they used to present
their thoughts and award the Guru
(instructor) of the winning danseuse.
The Chola period is rightly named as the
GOLDEN AGE. It is during this glorious
period of Chola Dynasty in the South of India
when all sorts of arts, be it dance, music,
sculpture, architecture, etc. flourished