nrithya-lasya-tandava
Tha Ka Dhi Mi Tha
"Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It’s the rhythm of your life. It’s the expression in time and movement, in happiness, joy, sadness and envy."
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Primer on Bharatanatyam Styles and Banis
Bani means tradition. It’s the dance technique and style specific to the guru/school. These are named according to the village of the guru (with the exception of a couple banis).
Here’s a breakdown:
Pandanallur (for the sake of brevity, I’m grouping Pandanallur and Thanjavur styles together). This style stems from the Thanjavur Quartet, four brothers who worked in the early 19th century Thanjavur Royal Court as musicians and dance composers. This style mainly draws from their repertoire, maintaining some of the oldest compositions in dance. Pure dance movements are linear and geometric, and abhinaya is more classically stylized rather than realistic. They’re also responsible for creating the current structure of the Margam.
Alarmel Valli - Learned from the doyen guru of Pandanallur, Chokalingam Pillai (who descended from the Thanjavur Quartet) and his son Subbarayya Pillai. She’s a little more fluid with her movements, owing to her training in Odissi.
Vidya Sankaranarayanan and Kittappa Pillai - Kittappa Pillai was also trained under Pandanallur Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai. The movements are more fluid and thorough in execution.
Shridharan and K. N. Dhandayuthapani Pillai - Basically same as above.
Balasaraswati
T. Balasaraswati - The famous Balasaraswati was a student of Kandappa Pillai (also a descendant of the Thanjavur Quartet). Her style is renowned for it’s exquisite abhinaya, though the nritta is not as polished as the other styles. In my estimation it’s what I would imagine the Devadasis used to dance like. Beautiful abhinaya, but unrefined nritta.
Kalakshetra
Students of Kalakshetra and Rukmini Devi - Rukmini learned from Pandanallur Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai (father in law of Chokalingam Pillai), and made several changes to the Pandanallur bani, creating the Kalakshetra style. It’s even more linear and geometric, and certain moves are exaggerated (like the torso bending in the arudi here). Abhinaya is also very stylized and unrealistic, and there is less emphasis on overly sringara based items.
Vazhuvoor - Created by Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai, this style is more feminine, emphasizing laasya over tandavam. Most traditional performances begin with a Thodaya Mangalam in praise of Gnana Sabesa, the reigning deity of Vazhuvoor town.
Chitra Visweswaran - Chitra learned from Ramiah Pillai the doyen guru of Vazhuvoor. Very fluid and feminine, with realistic abhinaya. Lots of poses as well.
Padma Subramaniam - Also a student of Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai. Here you can definitely see the realistic abhinaya. Her nritta is a little different with more emphasis on poses and karanas and she developed a different style later on, calling it BharataNrityam.
Kamala Lakshmanan - Star disciple of Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai, she also performed dances for Tamil Cinema, many of which were choreographed by her guru.
Sumitra Nitin & Sunanda Narayan and Rhadha - Radha is Kamala’s sister and also learned from Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai. As you can see there’s little more linearity and precision. Also note how the knees are bent in the dith-ith thei’s instead of extended out.
Priyadarsini Govind - Student of Rajaratnam Pillai, who was a disciple of Vazhuvoor Ramiah. To contrast her with Chitra Visweswaran, you can see she’s very precise with linear movements. Malavika Sarukkai, another student of Rajaratnam, is also similar.
Mellatur - Created by Mangudi Dorairaja Iyer, who revived Shudda Nritta and Perani (dancing on clay pots). His style eschews items praising living patrons (thus most of the Thanjavur Quartet repertoire) and encourages dancers to stamp the floor softly, focusing on the sound created by the salangai.
Harinie Jeevitha and Sri Devi Nrithyalaya - The most famous school representing this style. Lots of karana sculpturesque poses. Arched backs and deep araimandi looks to be common.
Manasvini and Revathi Ramachandran - Revathi was a student of Dorairaja Iyer and carries the torch of this bani forward.
There are some other styles of Bharatanatyam like Mysore and Kanchipuram that deserve mention, but unfortunately there’s a lack of video online. Please let me know if I’ve missed anything!
#omfg#i finally found this#thank you dear lord#bharatanatyam#bharathanatyam#bani#indian classical dance#dance#india
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"The truest expression of people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie." - Agnes de Mille
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I personally know Smt. Sunanda Narayanan.. She's an amazing dancer.. And an absolute inspiration!
Sumitra Nitin and Sunanda Narayanan, students of guru Smt. Rhadha.
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This "Classical Dance Flash Mob" features over 70 dancers, all members of ABHAI, in a mall in Chennai, India. The dancers here vary in age, experience, but all share a passion for Bharatanatyam.
As a side note, my cousin is actually in this, and he has been dancing for over 15 years, and is my inspiration.
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Alapadma - Bharatanaytam Hand Gesture.
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The dancing Shiva is known as Nataraja.
The term ‘Nataraj’ means ‘King of Dancers’. This cosmic dance of Shiva is called Anandatandava, meaning the Dance of Bliss, and symbolizes the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction, as well as the daily rhythm of birth and death. The dance is a pictorial allegory of the five principle manifestations of eternal energy:
•Shrishti - Creation.
•Sthiti - State, or preservation.
•Samhara - Destruction.
•Tirobhava - Illusion.
•Anugraha - Release, Emancipation.
In the form of Nataraja, Shiva depicts all of these elements.
Shiva has four arms:
•He holds a Damaru or a drum in his upper right hand. It symbolizes sound originating creation or the beat of the drum is the passage of time.
•He holds fire in his upper left hand, which characterizes destruction. Mostly accepted as destruction of all that is bad. Both these hands are on the same level or, on the same line. This shows that creation and destruction are both equal.
•The lower right hand shows Shiva’s protection from both evil and ignorance to those who follow the righteousness of dharma. This gesture is known as the Abhaya Mudra.
•The lower left hand is pointing towards His feet. It signifies upliftment and liberation. It also points to the left foot with the sign of the elephant which leads the way through the jungle of ignorance. Here, the attention is drawn towards the fact that life is graceful.
His right foot is pressed downward, expressing Tirobhava, or illusions in life; whereas, the left foot is drawn upwards, depicting Anugraha, or release from the illusions of the world towards enlightenment. The right leg is at the middle of the figure, which shows the preservation of a state, or Sthiti. It also holds down a demon, which can be perceived as the demon in all of us that shall be suppressed.
As in Hindu scriptures, “It is a continual dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos; the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomena.”
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A compilation of several Thyagaraja compositions interpreted through dance by Sruthipriya. My favorite is Kana Kana Ruchira, the Pancharatna Krithi in Varali Ragam.
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after bharatanatyam class youre just like still into it and you just feel like stepping in the subway like
helo new york i am here
#hahahah#YES#bnat#bnatprobs#bharahatanatyam#bharathanatyamprobs#Savitha Sastry#dance#classic#classical#indian
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A practice video of the entire Thillana in Paras ragam, performed by three students of the Dhananjayan school in Chennai.
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Cool beans :) tanjavoor style is so pretty and its the birth of bharathanatyam!! But I love kalakshetra too, like dance is what keeps me alive you know?
agreed. my cousin, he's a dancer of kalakshetra.. and has been doing it for 16 years.. and he's only 20.. so yeah, i find it INCREDIBLE
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Yeah! I do bharathanatyam, kalakshetra style. You? My arangetram is coming up in a month haha.
oh i'm dying to learn kalakshetra. i completed my arangetram this past august.. i learn tanjavoor style..
i wish you ALL THE BEST for your arangetram... the feel afterward will be UNBELIEVABLE..
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Hello friend, fellow dancer here. Can I just say your dance pictures are flawless??! I'm so jealous of your quality and your expressions *cries*
thank you so much. that means a lot. to me, dance is all about putting yourself out there.. i'm not the best dancer physically, but i think that my expressions are what have kept me coming so far...i'm sure you're an amazing dancer as well.. do you do bharatanatyam too?
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Murali Kauthuvam
#krishna#bharathanatyam#dancer#dance#classical#classic#india#indian#bharathanatyamprobs#bnat#sridevinrithyalaya#sri krishna#vaibhavam
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hi friend! :) i love your skirt costume; the green and white is such a pretty combination that i've never seen before :D
thank you so much! the skirt costume was my favorite too! i hadn't realized how comfortable it would be to dance in a skirt costume.. but i felt so free. do you learn bharatanatyam as well?
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