With the soles of her feet colored bright red, freshman Keerthana Anna Prakash still carries vestiges from her last performance of Bharatnatyam, an Indian classical dance, as she prepares for finals week.
Finding the art in Bharatnatyam
With the soles of her feet colored bright red, freshman Keerthana Anna Prakash still carries vestiges from her last performance of Bharatnatyam, an ...
May 9, 2015
With the soles of her feet colored bright red, freshman Keerthana Anna Prakash still carries vestiges from her last performance of Bharatnatyam, an Indian classical dance, as she prepares for finals week.
Dancers often color their hands and feet with alta, a red dye, to draw attention to the precise movements of Bharatnatyam. However, engineering student Prakash improvised with a red marker for last week’s dance recital hosted by Student Interest Group Attitude.
Bharatnatyam began in the temples of Tamilnadu as a peace offering for the gods, particularly Lord Shiva. The earliest traces of it can be found in Tamil literature texts from about the third century BCE.
“Nowadays it’s transformed into an art form that people perform on stages outside of temples,” said Prakash. “There are classes in the UAE as well as India. We have schools where the dances are practiced as a major.”
Growing up in an Indian family in the UAE, Prakash has been taking classes in Indian classical dance since she was six. In the UAE, there are dance competitions for ages six to 18, with the styles Bharatnatyam, Mohiniyattom and Kuchupudi.
“Participants are from all over the UAE, and I’ve participated in more than 50 competitions,” said Prakash. “It’s very common among the Indian community and also among people from Kerala.”
As a child, she felt obliged to take classes. It was an extra-curricular that her parents pushed her into, taken after biology and chemistry classes.
“Before, the classes seemed like … ‘If you don’t do it, you’re going to get from me a beating’ – stuff like that, a very military training kind of thing,” said Prakash, laughing.
Prakash did not really appreciate the dance until the eighth grade, when she changed to a new instructor who helped her understand the meaning behind Bharatnatyam. She began doing her own research and connected with the storytelling aspect of the dance.
“For starters, this is more than a dance form. It’s more theater,” said Prakash. “It’s this thing where you use your expressions to tell a story. It’s like miming, there are no words, but you tell stories from the Ramayana of the Hindu gods.”
She kept on taking classes after tenth grade, when most of her peers stopped dancing to concentrate on academics, and is still taking classes in Dubai on the weekends. Now she feels that dance has shaped her identity.
“What’s beautiful is that this entire thing can be expressed and shown without using words,” said Prakash.
Dance as expression particularly resonated with Prakash.
“That’s what amazes me, that’s what got me interested, because I have a lot of expressions — even when I’m talking, even when I’m not dancing, there’s something going on all over my face,” she said. “That’s me.”
There are generally two modes of storytelling with the dances, she explained. In one mode, the dancer tells stories to the god, and in another, the dancer shows the story about the god to the audience.
In last week’s Attitude dance recital, Prakash’s performance fell into the former mode. But in a recital program that ranged from ballet to hip hop to belly dancing, Prakash was not sure if Bharatnatyam would fit in.
Leader of Attitude and freshman Sebastian Grube asked Prakash to perform, but she hesitated. She had already considered performing last semester and decided against it.
“I didn’t know how people are going to take Bharatnatyam in this place because it’s totally different … It’s very precious,” said Prakash slowly. “There’s a prayer at the beginning of the dance, and a prayer that ends it.”
She worried that the dance’s story might not translate for the audience, and the meaning of the dance would be lost, knowing she would also have to put on an elaborate costume and the heavy makeup that brings out expressions during the dance.
With the competitions in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Prakash was accustomed to performing for people who are already familiar with the dance and know it as an art form that has sacred roots.
However, after the recital last week, Prakash was glad that she decided to perform. Every compliment made her day.
“A lot of people enjoyed it and a lot of people told me how much,” she said. “It really makes me happy that people enjoy it, and that they accept it.”
Prakash is also glad to contribute to the mix of cultures shown in the recital, and looks forward to showing other students the real dances of India beyond Bollywood, which she thinks is too influenced by the West.
After NYU Abu Dhabi, Prakash plans to return to India and continue studying Indian classical dance. In fact, this has always been her plan.
“Engineering was my plan B, my plan A was dancing,” she said. “But then I got into NYUAD, so I decided I’ll stay, finish this off, and then I will go to India to get a degree in dance.”
Her dream is to form a group and perform in different parts of the world. Prakash recalled a dancer who came to the UAE and performed Indian classical dance with translated lyrics so that English-speaking audiences could better understand its stories.
Whatever route she takes, Prakash said that she’ll always continue to dance.
“It’s something that I’ve grown up with, it’s been a part of my life,” said Prakash. “When I stop, it’s like something’s missing.”
Joey Bui is editor-in-chief. Email her at feedback@gzl.me.
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