Indian dancing

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MANIPURI

Every dance form creates its own aura, exhales its particular atmosphere. Bharata Natyam has solemnity and spiritual grandeur. Kathakali delves into the metaphysical and creates from it an eerie world of enchantment. Kathak stimulates the senses as with the cloying smell of exotic blooms. But Maniputi is the dance form that reaches the heart of Nature, and epitomizes its beauty and its richness.

While of comparatively recent growth, Maniputi is, in essence, a relic of the Nature worship of the early Aryans who probably descended, originally, from the Polar regions. There they worshipped the sun in the three stages of its Polar cycle, to which may be traced the origin of the Holy Hindu Trinity of Brahma (the creative force of the rising sun), Vishnu (the preservative aspect of the sun fully risen), and Shiva (the barrenness or destructiveness resulting from the long Polar sunset).

Manipuri dances, light, gay, and full of warmth and sunshine, grace the seasonal festivals of India. They mirror all the joyous moods of spring and summer as if in thanks for the bounty of creation. They have their roots in folk art, which is simply the spontaneous expression of a people’s realization of humanity’s need for harmony with Nature. Hence it is that in Indian mythology the gods are allocated an abode on the roof of the world, and the Ganges is revered as sacred Mother Ganga.

The origin of Manipuri is to be found once again in legend. Roughly five centuries ago, there was famine among the Naga tribes of Manipur in the far eastern corner of India, brought about by evil spirits. Then the Goddess of Might appeared to the tribal chief, advising him that the visitation could be banished by propitiating the gods through music and dance. The people of the district, young and old, joined in the ceremony, their joyous cele-

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