Bharata-Natyam
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Shiva Nataraja, the God of the Dance.
The
symbolism of the dance of Shiva is represented by the posture called
Ananda Tandavam ", The Dance of the Bliss.
Shiva has four arms: a right hand holds " damaru ", symbol of
creation by the essential sound; in one of the left hands, the purificatory
fire, the symbol of transformation; other right hand makes
the gesture which reassures; other left hand, gesture which protects;
his raised left foot, evokes the liberation and the safety; his right
foot crushes the devil of the ignorance and the evil.
While circle represents life the Moon represents
the spirit.
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Among eight classic style dances of India, one of the most important and of the most
perfect is the BHARATA-NATYAM, practised in all the South of the continent mainly
in Tanjavur's region. It's the most faithful in rules expressed in "Natya
Shastra", treatise on the dramatic art and dance codified in approximately
1st century B C. It's enough to study thousands of sculptures of temples to
notice the resemblance of the attitudes of the stony dancers and today’s dancers.
Formerly danced exclusively in temples by "devadasis", dancers hereditarily
attached to the temple and dedicated from the childhood to the god, by whom
they were considered as the wives. Bharata-Natyam disappeared from temples and
reached the scene. The offering of dances was formerly a part of the daily cult
and was the most important act of worship, because, say sacred books, "
no prayer, no offering is more pleasant to God than dance.
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This posture represents the God Shiva
who holds the moon in his hair.
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It's
a dance of soloist and its technique, very difficult, demand of long years of
learning and involves every muscle of the body, including those of the face,
because the art of " the abhinaya ", the expression of the emotions
and feelings, is essential in all the styles of dance in India.
This technique
requires vigour and grace, balance and flexibility, a good physical resistance
and an infallible sense of the rhythm. The movements are ample, precise, always
symmetric. The technical vocabulary includes jumps, deep cracks, tours and postures
in the difficult balance. The dances can present three characters: dances of
pure technique, without the other object than the esthetic pleasure which they
get by the beauty of attitudes and the complexity of the rhythms; expressing
dances, a mood, a feeling, according to a chosen subject, mixes of technique
and " of abhinaya "; narrative dances, or " padams ", where
the artist mimes by means of the symbolic sign language of "mudras"
the most subtle nuances of the song of invocation or worship.
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Mudra means gesture.
Here, these gestures represent
the action of offering.
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This
"mudras" is imitative, evocative or purely symbolic, and were called
" divya-kriya " or " divine actions ", because they allow
to obtain the awakening of the spiritual forces associated with certain attitudes
and gestures which favour the concentration. They've the power to awaken the
consciousness and to reach the deep zones of the being, the dance being considered
as a sort of yoga.
One reads
in the ancient treaty ABHINAYA DARPANAM, the mirror of the gesture, where
goes the hand the eye follows; where goes the eye, goes the spirit; where goes
the spirit is the heart; where's the heart is the reality of the being. "
This internal reality is not only awakened by the dancer's, but also by the
spectators.
So
this art which become confused with the sacred it restores to the man the savour
of its origin. Everything in the dance of India is meaning, deep education,
collectively in the esthetic pleasure and in the enjoyment which it gives.
As
all the arts, the dance isn't intended for the pleasure only of the senses,
it is its knowledge and its real function, it's through the beauty, the harmony
and by the echo of the senses, to awaken the being to itself and so to grant
him to the Universe.
