The eight recognised classical dance forms of India and their shared background
Classical Dance Fundamentals
The Basics
Dance in India did not begin with a book. It begins in myth and in material remains. Bharata's Natyashastra was compiled between roughly 200 BCE and 200 CE. It tells how Brahma created a fifth Veda called Natya Veda. This combined words from the Rig Veda, gestures from the Yajur Veda, music from the Sama Veda and emotion from the Atharva Veda. So dance, drama and music were conceived together as one complete art. Older evidence shows dance was already alive before any text. The rock paintings at Bhimbetka show community dancing. The Harappan bronze dancing girl shows dance as a social and ritual practice in the Bronze Age.
In Tamil Nadu temples, women called devadasis served the deity through music and dance. This practice grew especially from the Pallava period onwards. Prosperous temples began maintaining trained dancers, singers and musicians. Their solo dance performance came to be called Sadir, also known as Dashiattam. It drew on folk dance roots. These were gradually shaped into a stylised rendering of religious themes. Accomplished devadasis were educated and professionally trained. This gave some of them a freedom of movement and social standing unusual for women of their time. Others, reduced to mere temple attendants, did not enjoy the same respect.
In the temples of Kerala, feudal lords patronised two dance-dramas, Ramanattam and Krishnattam, which narrated episodes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. These folk traditions, along with the Sanskrit drama tradition called Koodiyattam and local martial arts performance, became the sources from which Kathakali grew. The name Kathakali comes from Katha, meaning story, and Kali, meaning drama or play.
Kerala already had Kathakali as its grand masked dance-drama when a separate, quieter tradition took shape for solo women performers. This dance came to be called Mohiniyattam, meaning the dance of the enchantress, from 'Mohini', the beautiful woman, and 'attam', dance. Mohini is the name Vishnu takes in a feminine form in Hindu mythology, and Mohiniyattam generally narrates this feminine aspect of Vishnu.
Odissi traces its earliest evidence to the Udayagiri-Khandagiri caves near Bhubaneswar, carved around the 2nd to 1st century BCE. These caves carry reliefs of dancers. They were commissioned under the Jain king Kharavela of Kalinga, who patronised the art. The dance form takes its name from 'Odra nritya', a term mentioned in the Natyashastra.
Manipur lies in a hill-ringed valley in the north-east. It has an old folk dance tradition called Lai Haraoba, performed for local deities known as Umang Lai.
Kuchipudi takes its name from a village in Andhra Pradesh, once called Kuchelapuram or Kusselavapuri. Troupes of actor-dancers called Kusselavas travelled from village to village performing dance-dramas. This wandering tradition settled in that village, giving the form its name.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, Assam had no single classical dance tradition of its own. By then, Bharatanatyam, Kathak and other regional forms were already taking shape elsewhere in India.
Sculpture and dance in India were never separate arts. Temple walls, bronze images and texts preserved the movements and gestures of classical dance. The clearest example is the image of Shiva as Nataraja, the Lord of Dance.