Bharatnatyam

In the 9th and 10th centuries BC, particularly in the time of Chola rule, a number of prominent and still-revered temples were built in South India. As a major part of the culture that flourished around these shrines was the development of dance and music as forms of worship, used to propitiate the gods. Unfortunately, these arts soon became popular entertainment, and the women - once honored and treated with as much respect as the priests themselves, degraded to the position of prostitutes. The dance that they practiced, therefore, was vulgarized and the art itself was colored a decidedly negative hue. And there was further strife in store for the dance form. With the onset of the British Raj, the classical arts suffered. 'Reform' was the watchword and the devadasi was again the victim, being labeled the nartaki, the nautch girl, a sub-human who needed to be remolded to suit society.

But, with typical human resilience, this situation reversed itself over time. This was primarily done by Chinniah, Ponniah, Vadivelu and Sivanandam, known as the Tanjore Quartet, talented brothers who in the 19th century 'organized' the structure of the dance form (sadir or nautch) itself into what is called Bharata Natyam today - with adavus (or basic steps), combined in choreographed sequences into jatis; these made up part of a more complex string of movements in conjunction with passages of abhinaya to form a cohesive unit of presentation, set to music, rhythmic syllables and lyrics. The brothers also contributed greatly to the repertoire of dance songs - both music and poetry.

Dancers themselves also helped re-establish the purity of Bharata Natyam, the dance of Bharat, or India, as it is sometimes given meaning. Rukmini Devi Arundale, Balasaraswati and Uday Shankar were instrumental in showing people that dance was 'respectable', beautiful, almost divine.

A typical Bharata Natyam performance includes -

Ganapati Vandana - a traditional opening prayer to the Elephant God, remover of obstacles
Alarippu - pooja through nritta to the four directions, the gurus, the elders and the audience
Jatiswaram - sequences of adavus set to musical syllables
Shabdam - generally in praise to a divinity, a short descriptive piece that includes sequences of jatis
Varnam - the longest, most elaborate and most challenging piece of a performance, with jatis alternating with lyrical passages, often describing the longing of a heroine for her lover
Padam - expressive pieces that give the dancer full scope to demonstrate her talent for abhinaya
Tillana - combinations of jatis, with a short prayer at the end, with elaborate tala patterns.

back to top