Photo Courtesy: Sri Rajarajeshwari Natya Kala Mandir
Bharata Natyam is a subtle and complex form of dance art from state Tamilnad. This is a dynamic, earthly and very clear dance style. Its distinctive features are variety of motions with emphasis on foot stamping, jumps and turns. The main figures are balanced poses with stretched hands and legs that add certain linearity to the dance. Beauty and power, slow-downs and speed-ups, pure dance and pantomime are equally felt in this dance.
Melattur Style
This style is based on expressive acting and spontaneous movements. The movement require high degree of flexibility and emphasized on sringara bhakti. It stresses on the fluid variations of patterned korvais, and dramatic characterizations.
Pandanallur Style
This style stresses on deep sitting positions and quite difficult to perform. It is a purely feminine dance style based on poetry or padams, perform in slow and rhythmic movements. It has three levels : in a deep sitting positions on the ground, movements on standing positions, and jumping and moving the body in great speed while dancing.
Vazhuvoor Style
This style break the monotony of the dance movements with soft facial expressions of subtle acting(abhinaya), the movement flow smoothly with rare abrupt movements. The dancer’s body from the waist up is slightly bent forward and leaps are introduced into every jati that creates a suspense effect.
Kalakshetra Style
This is a modern style of Bharatnatyam and a simplified form of Pandanallur style. Though the style has the hints authentic devdasis style of ancient times, it still a relatively recent introductions. It mainly focus of Angika (hand movements). The hand movements are delicately based on the words of the lyrics and placing the hand in an exact position even during narration. It is the most beautiful of all atyle of bharatnatyam.
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