Dance Vocabulary of Bharatanatyam

Bharatanatyam has a rich language of expression. Let’s look one level deeper, into the building blocks of the dance, the words and letters of the language. Both nritta and nritya are achieved by a combination of movements and positions involving the feet, limbs, and body, along with hand gestures and facial expressions. These elements are well defined, and constitute a vocabulary that characterizes Bharatanatyam. Natya is achieved through portrayal of characters and themes, which are also described in scriptures.

Scriptures like the Natya Shastra and Abhinayadarpana classify the elements of dance in great detail and in large arrays; we’ll point you to the books to study them further. For now, we’ll just mention various categories of Bharatanatyam elements, so you’ll know they exist, and can notice them in the dance.

The basic unit of dance in Bharatanatyam is the adavu. Each adavu is a combination of steps or positions with coordinated movements of the feet, legs, hands, arms, torso, head, and eyes. Adavus give Bharatanatyam its distinctive look. For instance, many adavus are executed with the legs bent, knees outward, heels together and toes outward – a position called araimandi. The adavus, numbering around 120 in all, are divided into numerous groups and subgroups. Some adavus are accompanied by rhythmic syllables, or sollukattus, that put together the steps of the adavu in a time sequence or meter. Sollukattu, which in Tamil means spoken (sol) structure (kattu), is a verbal description of an arrangement of beats or steps. For example, the phrase, “thai-yum-that-that thai-yum-tha” is the sollukattu for an adavu named Nattadavu. Various sollukattus have phrases like “thai-ya-thai-yi”, “tadhing-gina-thom”, and “kita-thaka-thari-kita-thom”. If you ever watch a Bharatanatyam class, you’ll hear many such phrases being called out by the teacher as the students practice adavus.

The hand gestures of Bharatanatyam are called hastas. Sometimes, you may hear them called mudras, or hasta mudras. There are one-handed and two-handed hastas, there are lots of them, and they all have names. When a hasta is employed in a specific context for a specific purpose, it gets a special name for that use. For example, the Tripataka hasta is a gesture in which the hand and fingers are held flat, with the ring finger bent at the knuckle so that it is perpendicular to the palm. This is the position of the hands in Nattadavu, and for this application, and any other nritta application, it is called Tripataka or Tripataka hasta. When it is used in nritya to denote fire, or to portray a tree, it is still called Tripataka hasta, but when it is used to denote Vishnu, it is called Vishnu hasta. In general, when the hastas are used to denote deities, celestial bodies (like the nine planets), or relations, their names are changed according to the application. All the hastas find use in nritya, but only a subset of them are used in nritta; these are also called nritta hastas. During nritta, the hastas convey no meaning. They are purely decorative. In nritya, the hastas are a vital aspect of the expressive language of the dance. They describe things and objects, they express concepts like truth, beauty, or the passage of time, they depict thoughts, words, and actions, and they combine with facial expressions to show emotions. The same hasta, used with different arm movements or in a different context, can have a different meaning. This is how the Tripataka hasta can be used for fire or a tree, and can also become the Vishnu hasta. This is just a simple example; most hastas have dozens of different uses.

The facial expressions of Bharatanatyam are called abhinaya. (To be precise, abhinaya is the art of expression, and facial expressions are one aspect of abhinaya, but the term abhinaya is commonly used to refer to facial expressions. We’ll discuss abhinaya further in its own section later.) The dancer uses facial expressions to show emotions. The emotions may come from the poetry in the music, or belong to a character being portrayed. The expressive aspect of the dance is the means by which the dancer can communicate an inner experience to the audience. The emotions shown by the dancer create a response in the audience, an experience of feeling or sentiment. Bharatanatyam scriptures have organized the process by which sentiment is produced, and categorized the different types of aesthetic emotions. Each sentiment is associated with causes, consequences, and passing feelings, all in the presence of a dominant emotion. The dancer may enact many passing feelings (called sanchari bhava) to show the effects (called anubhava) produced by the causes (called vibhava) of the emotional state, and to reveal the fullness of the dominant emotion (called sthayi bhava). For example, to describe a main emotion of love, the dancer may portray various transitory feelings like impatience, weakness, excitement, anxiety, and so on, to suggest the longing for one’s beloved. In Bharatanatyam, there are nine emotions – shringara (love, eros), vira (valor, heroism),karuna(sadness),adbhuta(awe, amazement),raudra(fury),hasya(laughter, humor), bhayanaka (fear), bibhatsa (revulsion), and shanta (peace) – and countless passing feelings that may be enacted. The portrayal of feelings in abhinaya is stylized rather than literal. For example, to illustrate sadness by describing the flow of tears, a Bharatanatyam dancer doesn’t actually shed tears (as a movie actor would), but indicates the flow of tears using hand gestures combined with facial expressions.

In addition to the fundamental emotions, categorized in the Natya Shastra and other scriptures, the vocabulary of Bharatanatyam includes a variety of characters, and their associated qualities, that are used to develop themes. The nayika or heroine, the nayaka or hero, and the sakhi or friend, are examples of such characters. The Natya Shastra lists eights types of nayikas based on their emotional circumstances. In addition, there are categorizations like the ten graces of women, the ten stages of love, and so on. Characters may also be classified according to their stature, as uttama (noble, divine), madhyama (human), and adhama (base), as well as according to their moral disposition, as swakiya (faithful wife), parakiya (married but longs for another), and samanya (courtesan). The stature and qualities of characters influence which emotions they experience, modify the emotions they do experience, and determine their responses to different circumstances. Without going into all the details and definitions of character that are documented, we can see by the attention given to the nuances of emotion and character, that the portrayal of various states and moods is the subject of great artistry in Bharatanatyam. It extends the language of Bharatanayam into the realm of poetry.

We’ve touched on a few of the most prominent aspects of the dance vocabulary of Bharatanatyam, without going into much depth. There are many details that we haven’t covered. Nevertheless, we can begin to how these elements fit together as building blocks for the dance. Adavus and nritta hastas are the foundation of nritta. Adavus and the full range of hastas, together with abhinaya, make up nritya. The use of abhinaya and character provides the dramatic element, or natya. This is certainly a simplistic explanation, but it illustrates the depth of the Bharatanatyam vocabulary. Each basic element in the list is a deep subject in its own right.