[COP3]Analysing India traditional dance- Odissi

Dancing is another form of performance that widely includes movements of the whole body to demonstrate beauty of body, beauty of nature or to tell a story. There are various dances in the world which are all performed and created by different culture this is why dance is also very distinguishable between countries and have their own signature due to regional experience.

Odissi, the major India dance, is a compact performance art that has been developed back in 2nd century B.C.when this dance was discovered in Natya Shastra, the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text of performance arts. Dancing is very essential to Indian because this is how they worship and communicate with Hindu's god and the dancing body is also a source of pleasure and vehicle of worship that multiple meaning through movements from representational content: holding flowers, lighting candles, to abstract content: nature of world, good and evil, desire, spirituality and sensuality.

The video above demonstrate the traditional Odissi dance briefly. In the expressive dance sequences, the dancer is synchronised with music using movements of her upper body, hand gestures and facial expressions. The way the dancer elaborates the dance which I would say it is extremely similar to mime because they have share common elements like act with music, expressive movement and playful expression.


BALAKKA: Dancing with Tradition Documentary Promo from DULAM SATYANARAYANA on Vimeo.

In other example like this documentary. Dancer comparatively has given more emotions into the dance that could be told by her attitude and passion of Odissi. This also suggests that even the formula is the same, dancers perform it in different way according to how they experience and perceive the world. ''Really, dance is observation of life. As a dancer, you have to be open to everything happening around you-how does a flower blossom, how do people talk to each other, how do they stand, how do they sit, what are they expressing with the bodies?...''(Jonas, G. and Grauer, R. [1998]) On the other word, expressing message using body needs to study the vicinity, or like how Marc Davis suggests ''feeling for acting'' therefore mime is like dancing and also like how animator processing actions and movements for characters.

from the official website, it explains the meaning of the move in Odissi. There are standing poses indicating different gender: Chowk pose imitate a square, with the elbow bend in 90 degree, is a masculine stance that emphasising on the qually balance; Tribhanga pose shows a lot of bending of the body especially at the neck, torso and the knees, is a feminine stance that emphasising on the curve of female body. It is similar to molding a character and give him the best suitable gesture and body language to amplify his characteristic.

reference: http://ccrtindia.gov.in/odissi.php (10th Oct 2016)