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Dance and Dances of India
Dance and Dances of India
AND
Dances of India
By
Tamarapu Sampath Kumaran
About the Author
Acknowledgement:
I wish to express my gratitude to the authors from whose works I gathered the
details for this book, Courtesy, Google for the photographs.
DANCE
Dance is a performing form consisting of purposefully selected sequences
of human movements. This movement has aesthetic and symbolic value and is
acknowledged as dance by performers and observers within a culture. Dance can
be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements,
or by its historic or place of origin.
Archeological evidence for early dance includes 9,000-year-old paintings
in India at the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, and Egyptian tomb paintings depicting
dancing figures, dated c. 3300 BC. It has been proposed that before the invention
of written languages, dance was an important part of the oral and performance
methods of passing stories down from generation to generation. The use of dance
in ecstatic trance states and healing rituals (as observed today in many
contemporary "primitive" cultures, from the Brazilian rainforest to the Kalahari
Desert is thought to have been another early factor in the social development of
dance.
References to dance can be found in very early recorded history; Greek
dance (horas) is referred to The Bible and Talmud refer to many events related to
dance and contain over 30 different dance terms.
The Sattriya dance form was introduced in the 15th century A.D
by the great Vaishnava saint and reformer of Assam, Mahapurusha Sankaradeva as
a powerful medium for propagation of the Vaishnava faith. The dance form
evolved and expanded as a distinctive style of dance later. This neo-Vaishnava
treasure of Assamese dance and drama has been, for centuries, nurtured and
preserved with great commitment by the Sattras i.e. Vaishnava maths or
monasteries. Because of its religious character and association with the Sattras, this
dance style has been aptly named Sattriya