Dancers can read?

Hey again,

So I am finally free of school forever having had my last a-level exam today. YAY! Hence I have finally found the time to do a book review ^_^ My plan was actually to review two books but alas I have misplaced one of them, and by misplaced I mean I have literally turned the entire house upside down and still not found it, it's a horrible feeling losing a book :( But the blog must go on!

I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk a little about the world of dance literature. Naturally I know mainly about books on Indian classical dance, but there are hundreds of books out there about ballet, street dance, contemporary etc. etc. There are also a few interesting studies of the male dancer. On the subject of Indian classical dance literature, good luck to you. I really find it a bit disheartening that there is very little good literature written about Indian classical dance, and there are two main issues for this. Firstly, nearly all are written by Indians whose mother tongue is not English, and although every Indian I know speaks better English than me, the authors of these books don't. It is impossible to read through sentences that use archaic language that I've never heard and that are so complex I have to read through them three times before I grasp the meaning. Secondly nearly all of these books are only published in India by Indian publishing houses, as such they have to be imported to the UK and a lot of the time the people importing them are not classical dancers. For example, if I were to go to Southall to look for some books, I would have to go to Jas or Bina which are the two music shops there, and they are owned by Punjabi Sikhs which means that 90% of their books are either on Sikhism, Bhangra, Punjabi culture, Hindustani classical music, Tabla or Dhol. So very little classical stuff and what classical stuff there is isn't always the best. The other problem that arises with importing them is the price goes up. I went into Jas once looking for a book, that published by an English publisher in England would probably cost me around £20, which is already a ridiculous price, but they were charging around £90. Pahahahaha. I mean, seriously? Half of the people wanting to buy that book are going to be Indian, can you see an Indian paying £90 for a badly printed imported book? No, me neither.

There are a few gems though and today I am going to share one of them with you, you lucky people ;)

There is a series of books published by Wisdom Tree in New Delhi, the series is called Dances of India and the series editor is Alka Raghuvanshi with photographs by Avinash Pasricha. The series includes the following titles: Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Odissi, Manipuri, Kuchipudi, Kathakali and Mohiniyattam. Each book written by a trained dancer in the style they are writing about. I currently only own the Bharatanatyam one, written by Prathibha Prahlad. Who is herself a trained dancer, here's her official page if you want more info: Website of Prathibha Prahlad

This is what it looks like, lovely front cover isn't it? In terms of buying it you can get it in Southall or from Amazon, here's the Amazon link Bharatanatyam (Dances of India) [Hardcover]. So what I actually think of the book. I think it's a beautifully written look at the dance form, it doesn't always go into as much detail as perhaps it could but it explains a lot of terms such as nritta and nritya perfectly. It also has a wonderful selection of colour photographs of famous bharatanatyam dancers. I like it because it is written in easy to understand English and it's very poetic. Here's a couple of passages I particularly like...

"To speak about Bharatanatyam, is to enter into a philosophical discourse on ethics, aesthetics and social reality all at once."

"You cannot, it may be said, describe God in words; nor can you in the language of everyday life, convey your conception of the innermost reality of life. But you may be able  to do these things in art."

This is the Contents (wait, what, you can read from the picture above?! Mind: blown.), so you can see what's covered. The history and evolution chapter is very in-depth, and the costume and make-up chapter has a lot of information that I've never read before, so all in all a great book.

This is just a snapshot of the inside, the photographs really are marvellous, this one being of the amazing Alarmel Valli. 

So basically guys, go buy this book if you're interested in Bharatanatyam! One day I aim to own the whole series... 

I had a dance rehearsal today and it is for quite an interesting project so look out for that post coming soon! I'm now off to bharatanatyam class to try and master the mallari, so until next time, happy dancing!