Bharatanatyam – By Meera Arul
Bharatanatyam is a famous classical dance originated from south India,The theoretical structure of Bharatanatyam is known as ‘Sadir,’ and traces back to the foundational text on artistic expression, Natya Shastra. Legends of Lord Shiva reveal him as the creator of Bharatanatyam, who performed the dance to sage Bharata, who in turn wrote the dance form into the Natya Shastra.Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904-1986), the renowned Bharatnatyam dancer is the person who is credited for the renaissance of Bharatnatyam dance form and more significantly making the dance which was primarily a forte of Devadasis, mainstream and respectable in the society,I personally feel like bharatanatyam is such a great expressive dance form,I’ve been learning for over 7 years now and am currently doing the first jathiswaram.It has taught me to never give up however hard the ‘adavu’ is. It helped me a lot with concentration, for example your hand would go in a totally different direction than your leg and in turn would need a lot of concentration just to finish a simple step.I feel they are very underrated in the community as they put in months of effort to perform in a show yet most classical dancers perform at empty seats even if the ticket is free. We need to start taking pride in our culture and appreciate the gifts of it.