DANCE.

Dance.

Dance is the movement of the body in a rhythmic way, usually to music and within a given space, for the purpose of expressing an idea or emotion, releasing energy, or simply taking delight in the movement itself.               Dance is a powerful impulse, but the art of dance is that impulse channeled by skillful performers into something that becomes intensely expressive and that may delight spectators who feel to dance themselves.

Dance is an art, a form of expression that utilizes bodily movements that are usually rhythmic, patterned and accompanied by music. Dance is one of the oldest of art forms, being found in virtually every culture and attested to in records of cultures long since extinct.

Dance is a part of all rituals. Farmers dance for a plentiful harvest, seasonal festivals, religious fairs, marriages, and births are celebrated by community dancing. A warrior dances before his Goddess and receives her blessings before he leaves for battle. A temple girl dances to please her God. The Gods dance in joy, in anger, in triumph. The world itself was created by the Cosmic Dance of Lord Shiva, who is the Nataraja, the king of dancers, and worshipped by actors and dancers as their patron.

Religious festivals are still the most important occasions for dance and theatrical activity. The Ram-Lila, Krishna-Lila and Ras-Lila in North, the Chhau masked dance-drama in Saraikela, in Bihar, and the Bhagavatha mela in Melatur village in Tamil Nadu are performed annually. During the Dashahara festival every village enacts for a fortnight the story of Rama's life, with songs, dances and pageants. The Jatra in West Bengal is a year-round dramatic activity, but the number of troupes swells too many thousands in Kolkata during the Puja festival.         The hill and tribal people dance all night to celebrate their community festivals and weddings rich in masks, pageants, and carnivals. For the usually all-night folk dramas, people come with their children, straw mats, and snacks, making themselves at home. At these performances there is a constant inflow and outflow of spectators. Some go to sleep, asking their neighbours to awaken them for favourite scenes. Stalls selling betel leaves, peanuts, and spicy fried items, adorned with flowers and incense and lighted by oil lamps, surround the open-air arena.

The clown, an essential character in every folk play, comments on the audience and contemporary events. Zealous spectators offer donations and gifts in appreciation of their favourite actor or dancer, who receives them in the middle of the performance and thanks the donor by singing or dancing a particular piece of his choice. The audience thus constantly throws sparks to the performer, who throws them back. People laugh, weep, sigh, or suddenly fall silent during a moving scene.

In both folk and classical forms of drama, the performer may lengthen or shorten his piece according to audience response. During a Kathak dance, the drummer, in order to test the perfection of the dancer, disguises the main beat of his drum by slurs and off-beats, a secret he shares with the audience and announces by a loud thump that is synchronized with the dancer's stamping of the foot. At this point in the dance the spectators shout, swaying their heads in admiration. They show their approval and disapproval through delighted groans or sullen headshakes as the performance goes on. In the Rasa-Lila, the audience joins in singing the refrain and marks the beat by hand clapping. At a climactic point the people rock and sway, rhythmically clapping and singing. These practices bind the performers, chanters, and spectators together in a sense of aesthetic pleasure.

In some classical dance forms, such as Kuchipudi, the dancer sings in voiceless whispers as she dances.           In Bharata-Natyam the dance movements are like sculpted music in space. In Kathak the rhythmic syllables beaten out by the dancer with her feet are vocalized by the singer and then chirped out by the drummer.           No folk dancing is complete without the use of drum and vocal singing. Women's folk singing such as the Giddha in the Punjab and the men's Kirtan in West Bengal takes the form of dance when the rhythm becomes fast.        In folk theatre this relationship is even more apparent. Raslila dance sequences are interspersed with the singing as a decorative frill, to accentuate emotional appeal, or to mark the climax of a song. The Yaksha-gana hero gives a brisk dance number to announce his entry. In many folk Bhavai, Terukkuttu, and Nautanki, the characters sing and dance at the same time or alternate. Ballad singers from Orissa and Andhra Pradesh dramatize their singing by strong facial gestures, rhythm of the ghunghru and execute dance phrases between the narrative singing.