Devdasi Culture

The dancers who perform the dance at the temple is known as “ Devadashi”. The name clearly justifies the meaning is – “Servant of God”. In early ages, they enjoyed great deal of respects and were maintained by the King or the Government. All of them were very versed in Art, literature, music and obviously in Dance. This continued for a very very long time, specially, under Pallava and cholla rules.




        A bharatnatyam dancer always starts and ends every dance by ‘ Pranam’ or ‘Namashkaram’. By this dancers show their respects firstly to the GOD, then GURU and the Audience.
      At the time of British Rule, the discouragement of authority gradually grows throughout the 19th century. Christian missionaries launched anti-dance movement in 1892 by saying it “a Disgraced System”.

                The Indian Cultural Community were worried that such a rich and ancient custom was getting banned. Many art revivalists like freedom fighters, activists and classical artists like, E.Krishna Iyer questioned against it. He was arrested and imprisoned. As the indian Freedom Movement was  progressed ,effort to revive this classical dance form also became a movement. Eminent Bharatnatyam dancers like Balasaraswati, Rukmini Devi Arundale and so others expanded this dance form out of the temples. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mudras in Bharatnatyam

Image
Mudras are hand gestures that used in Bharatnatyam. The hand gestures are major part of Angika Abhinaya. Dancers speak via body movements rather than orally , in this way mudra is the main tool of dancers to convey their inner feelings or some activities they want to express .  There are two classifications in Indian traditional dance – Image courtesy: Google   Asamyukta hasta Asamyukta hastas are done using single hand. Natyasatra mentioned 24 asamyukta hastas in this sloka. Four new mudras are added to the list later which are  Kataka, Vyagraha, Ardhasuchi and Palli. Patakas tripatakascha tathavai kartarimukhaha Ardhachandra haralashcha sukhatundaka tathaivacha Mushtischa shikharakhyascha kapitha katakamukhaha Suchasya padmakosha sarpashira mrigashirshaka Kangulo alapadmascha chatura bhramarastatha Hansasya hansapakhsashcha sandamso mukulastatha Urnanavas tamrachuras chaturvingshatiririta.   Image courtesy: Google   ...
Read more

Karanas in Bharatnatyam

Image
Natyashastra states that Karanas are the unit of dance. Guru Padma Subrahmanyam attempted to reconstructed all the 108 karanas. Karanas are the brief body movements describing leg, body, arm accompanied by hasta mudras. Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam had a thorough research on Karanas and written a book named as - "Karanas-common dance codes of india and Indonesia.". The research mainly based on five temples which are Prambanan, Tanjavur, Kumbokonam, Chidambaram. Karanas are considered as mere poses earlier. In the 20th century she has state that karanas are not only postures but a total series of dance movements. Devdasis used to perform all 108 Karanas but now a days in most contemporary Bharatnatyam practices small number of karanas. Many of  Padma Subrahmanyam disciples such as Sujata Mohan, Uma Sriram, Janaki Rangrajan, Rashmi Bandopadhay and others are teaching the 108 karanas based on Dr.Padma Subrahmanyam's research. Natya shastra states karanas are created by Lord S...
Read more

Some Veteran Dancers of Bharatnatyam

Image
There are some veteran dancers of Bharatnatyam who worshipped dance as religion. Their hard effort helped bharatnatyam to be an art of the people. Bala Saraswati: Tanjore Balasaraswati also known as Balasaraswati was a celebrated traditional Indian dancer.  Image courtesy: Google She was awarded the  Padma Bhushan  in 1957 and the  Padma Vibhushan  in 1977, the third and the second highest civilian honours given by the  Government of India . In 1981 she was awarded the  Sangeetha Kalasikhamani  award of The Indian Fine Arts Society, Chennai. After witnessing her performance Uday Shankar became an ardent promoter of her performance. Her performance recreated the interest of people in traditional dance. Her performance also gained reputation internationally.  In a review in 1977, the New York Times dance critic  Anna Kisselgoff  described her as one of the "supreme performing artists in the world...
Read more