Indian dancing

KATHAK

It is at the saa that the climax of a verse is reached and it is then that the singer and the /ab/a players unite their efforts. The drummer starts off first, drumming any verse selected by the dancer, who interprets the meaning of it, whitling around till the rhythm reaches its crescendo. The face of the dancer remains grave and it is only when the wail of the sarangi (an instrument producing sounds not unlike those of a bagpipe) predominates that she enters into the second part of the dance — gaths.

GATHS

Gaths, ot gestures, ate, in Kathak, of the simplest variety. They interpret ordinary actions such as the washing of the face, the weating of bangles, or the carrying of a pitcher poised on the head.

It is only when the gaths begin that the dancer abandons her gravity of countenance and her face becomes the mirror of many moods indicative of the contents of the chosen verse. As in the sanchari bhava of Bharata Natyam, the dancer may render one phrase in a variety of different ways. For instance, taking the line, ‘In wotship I bow to Thee, O Raml’, she may begin her adoration of Ram with a supplicatory gesture but, finding it unheeded, she may resort to coquetry with eyes and hands to lure the gaze of Ram towards herself.

Though Kathak is of not more than a few hundred years’ growth, legends cling to it, derived of course from the Hindu part of its parentage. The swiftness of the sorahs is explained by one such legend:

At the celebration of a feast in Indra’s court, the gods and goddesses entered into a dance competition with one another. Parvati’s torahs wete so swift that they won her the prize; but so indignant was Shiva at his consort’s victory, that he entered into rivalry with her, and for every torah she executed, he performed a faster one. Yet each time Parvati’s were faster than her lord’s, till he threatened to do his dance of destruction, when she wisely allowed him supremacy.

The themes of most Kathak dances concern themselves with

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