HEARTBEAT OF DANCE
Her cruel smile in the corner of her lips, her eyes portraying anger, her hands trying to complete the action with the beat in her leg, which coordinates with the talam.
The art of delineating portrays the ambience just with an eye rotation that would express the significance of personality. The art that would fill the blank space forged by the tone of the talam; the art that completes another art entitled as dance. She bares her soul to give it life. She is the action that produces force to bring a quixotic situation into materiality.
Moreover, we call her Abhinaya!
“ANGIKAM BHUVANAM YASYA
VACHIKAM SARVA VANGMAYAM
AHARYAM CHANDRA TARADI
TAM VANDE SATVIKAM SIVAM”
MEANING: We bow to Him the benevolent One whose limbs are the world, whose song and poetry are the essence of all languages, whose costume is the moon and the stars.
In the above sloka, the archetype of four types of Abhinaya is the epithet given to Lord Shiva.
There are two modes of Abhinaya – Natyadharmi and Lokadharmi.
The sky is like an orange bed covering itself with a grey blanket of clouds. Peacock, the epitome of beauty with its blue, gold, and green lined feathers spreading its tail, expresses its happiness through its dance. The cool breeze brushing against the bushes and the leaves losing their strengths separate themselves from their beloved branches. Birds with a chirpy sound warn its kids asking to return to its nest. The empty street flooded with pale yellow leaves flies to reach heights. In the corner of the street a woman whose face personifies fire in the sun, her hair tied loose and her eyes yearning to see her husband who left her alone and went to another place in search of job. He promised her that he would return in a year’s time but is still not back.
They perform an imaginary story in the form of dance. This is the Natyadharmi form, which has a codified manner of presenting emotions and expressions. It takes it away from the natural world into a dramatic world, whereas Lokadharmi is something that we do in our day-to-day life. Simple expressions are involved in it.
The bells in the anklets are being analogous to the talam, the bangles in the hand wavering along with the mudhra and each organ in our face expresses the depth of the scenario – few qualifications that are required to call you a dancer. Usually Abhinaya takes the dance from proficient to unforgettable.
She is the rhythm of the poem, written with her eyes, expressed with her smile, where mind is the pen, soul is the ink, and body is the paper.
Written By harshiniraghu
