Hello, my name is Jackie Goldman and I will be blogging about my experience with Bharatanatyam. Bharatanatyam is a classical Indian dance coming from Tamil Nadu in South India. There is a very long history of this dance, but I will go into it another time. I want to take this introduction to explain my first impressions and feelings about Bharatanatyam as well as some things that I have learned so far.
As someone who has taken western dance for over a decade, I was very excited to start learning an eastern type of classical dance. When I first heard that we only needed to have 52 hours of dance this semester, I was very sad. It did not seem like much time at all. I was so excited that we were starting so early in the semester. It was also great to learn that I would be taking this class with a friend of mine, Alex, and that we would eventually perform a duet. I had never performed a duet and I have never taken a semi-private dance class.
I learned from the first class that Bharatanatyam was like nothing I have ever learned. Unlike in western dance where you learn a lot and then polish, everything in Bharatanatyam is precise from the beginning. We spent a class learning how to do the half sitting position, how to hold our arms and how to slap our feet so that we would make the most sound. I had never had to do a dance form where sound was the goal. Well, I took tap dancing, and still love it, but the type of noise that one has to make is very different. In tap, you rely on the metal shoe to make the noise. There is not supposed to be much force in the step. Bharatanatyam has forced me to learn to put all my weight into my feet.
We spent the first few classes learning tattaros which are the most basic of the steps. They are really just a basic slap. There are 8 of them. The difference between the 8 are just number of slaps per leg and the rhythm.
The second and third week, we learned nattaros which are a bit more complex. They involve some moving and different foot-works. There are 8 nattaros and we know all 8.
Throughout this time, we have have learned 8 head movements, 8 eye movements, 4 neck movement, 24 single hand gesture and 24 double hand gestures. We have also learned a series of steps that are knows by the name of "ta tai tai tats" after the sounds of the feet as well as Tatti Meti steps. Here is a good link that explains the basic step and has pictures (http://btnydance.weebly.com/basic-steps.html) It does a much better job than I could do of explaining the basic foot-works.
After the Diwali break, we are going to start working on the duet and I am very excited.
As someone who has taken western dance for over a decade, I was very excited to start learning an eastern type of classical dance. When I first heard that we only needed to have 52 hours of dance this semester, I was very sad. It did not seem like much time at all. I was so excited that we were starting so early in the semester. It was also great to learn that I would be taking this class with a friend of mine, Alex, and that we would eventually perform a duet. I had never performed a duet and I have never taken a semi-private dance class.
I learned from the first class that Bharatanatyam was like nothing I have ever learned. Unlike in western dance where you learn a lot and then polish, everything in Bharatanatyam is precise from the beginning. We spent a class learning how to do the half sitting position, how to hold our arms and how to slap our feet so that we would make the most sound. I had never had to do a dance form where sound was the goal. Well, I took tap dancing, and still love it, but the type of noise that one has to make is very different. In tap, you rely on the metal shoe to make the noise. There is not supposed to be much force in the step. Bharatanatyam has forced me to learn to put all my weight into my feet.
We spent the first few classes learning tattaros which are the most basic of the steps. They are really just a basic slap. There are 8 of them. The difference between the 8 are just number of slaps per leg and the rhythm.
The second and third week, we learned nattaros which are a bit more complex. They involve some moving and different foot-works. There are 8 nattaros and we know all 8.
Throughout this time, we have have learned 8 head movements, 8 eye movements, 4 neck movement, 24 single hand gesture and 24 double hand gestures. We have also learned a series of steps that are knows by the name of "ta tai tai tats" after the sounds of the feet as well as Tatti Meti steps. Here is a good link that explains the basic step and has pictures (http://btnydance.weebly.com/basic-steps.html) It does a much better job than I could do of explaining the basic foot-works.
After the Diwali break, we are going to start working on the duet and I am very excited.
