Kathak Dance Syllabi - Dr. Puru Dadheech: a review.

Hi all!

Having now replaced the book I lost, today I bring you a book review of Dr. Puru Dadheech's "Kathak Dance Syllabi" I got this book in Southall (surprise, surprise) from Bina Musicals for £5 which is a little expensive considering it's only Rs. 150-00, which is about £1.60, in India. 

Dr. Dadheech wrote the forward in which he explains that on a trip to the UK in 1993/4 as a guest Kathak examiner, he was approached by a number of teachers who had read his Hindi publications and urged him to write a textbook in English for students of Kathak outside of India. Kathak Dance Syllabi is essentially exactly that; a textbook. It explains the main terms such as tatkar and amad, as well as covering famous dancers, mudras and bhedas. 

At first glance it looks a little more suited to a Bharatanatyam or Kuchipudi textbook since generally in Kathak only a few mudras are regularly used and the book explains and demonstrates all samyuta and asamyuta mudras in detail over the course of an entire chapter. However it must be taken into account that for a dance form to be considered a classical dance form by the Sangeet Natak Akademi of India, it has to originate somewhere in the Natya Shastra, the general Bible on classical Indian dance if you will. As such Kathak dancers, just like Bharatanatyam or Kuchipudi dancers, are expected to know all of the mudras, although perhaps less thoroughly. The nice thing is that next to each picture there is an explanation as to when and how this mudra is used. 

Important terms of Kathak dance

Head movements

Hand gestures

It should also be noted that this book is essentially the textbook for taking exams with the Pandit Ram Sahai Sangit Vidyalaya based in London as well as courses offered by the Prayag Sangeet Samiti of Allahabad, India, the Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Maha Vidhyalaya Mandal of Mumbai, India and the Pracheen Kala Kendra of Chandigarh, India. 

Generally speaking I like this book a lot, I think it has a wealth of information in a compact little book. However, there are certainly some major downfalls. Firstly, it is very badly printed. It begins with the forward, then a paragraph and a half of chapter three, then a page of chapter 4 and then the contents page that begins at chapter 6 and ends with chapter 17, thereby missing out chapters 3,4,5,18,19 and 20. There would appear to be no chapter 1 or 2. Then another paragraph and a half from some unknown chapter, and then it prints half of chapter 3 and 4, then finally on page 13 the full chapter 3 starts and continues thereafter in order up to the end of chapter 20. If you can get past this then the content itself is really useful. Chapter 15 covers the two notation systems for Hindustani classical music which is very useful and on the theory paper for the Pt. Ram Sahai Sangit Vidyalaya exams. Chapters 16-20 are dance notations in various tals. I myself have never really understood these very well, perhaps because the book does not explain them or perhaps because I am after all still only a student. 

Dance notations

The biggest downfall for me is that the English isn't good. I don't mean to sound arrogant but I am both a native English speaker and a linguist. I think that if you are going to write a book in a language that isn't your own, you should at least have a native speaker proof read it. That has clearly not been done and occasionally some sentences don't make sense. These are the two major problems I have often found with books published in India; they are badly printed with incorrect English. That said, this is one of the only textbooks on Kathak written in English and the explanations are gold. I would recommend it to any Kathak students taking exams because it has all the information in one place. 

I should mention that this is only part 1 of what I assume is a two-part series, as the Hindi version is, but I couldn't find part 2. I think that it was overpriced for the two downfalls I have mentioned but alas if it can only be found in one or two shops then you just have to deal with that. Dr. Puru Dadheech is himself an accomplished Kathak dancer and is one of the dancers whose biographies you may choose to learn for the Pt. Ram Sahai Sangit Vidyalaya theory paper. 

There is a short biography of Dr. Puru Dadheech at the back, which is actually one of the few biographies written about him. 

So that's all for now and today I leave you with a quote from one of the only two known Pakistani Bharatanatyam dancers - Indu Mitha. 

"Dance is not about taal, dance is not about conformity to music, dance is about ideas and feelings which are universal but the myths of human beings" 

-Publisher: Bindu Prakashan, Indore, India
-Printed by: Law Book Printers & Publishers, Indore, India
-as well as: Deep Jyoti Printers, Indore, India
-ISBN: 81-900056-7-7

The Weekly Grind: BN

This post is a little late so sorry about that!

Welcome to the second instalment of The Weekly Grind: Bharatanatyam, my weekly post on my BN class.

So this week started with Ganesha Vandanam which I'm glad to say is finally starting to become muscle memory! I think one of the reasons I like this piece so much is because it was my first nritya piece, the first time I got to use abhinaya. It's so simple yet so beautiful. The bit I also feel I am weak at is the very last posture in araimandi, because after having been stamping in araimandi for a lot of the piece it's incredibly hard to suddenly stand still and hold the perfect araimandi for a few seconds. My Guru often says we should just start watching TV in araimandi so we get used to it... I might just have to try that some time soon!

Pain was soon to follow in the form of the Alarippu. I find it amazing that the Alarippu is one of the first pieces a dancer learns and yet it requires so much strength. I still haven't managed to get through the whole piece without realising one of my arms has gone down and there is this one adavu that is relatively near the end that I can do well by itself but in the midst of the Alarippu it always crumbles, so I shall have to work on that. Again I really love the simply beauty of the Alarippu, and I could listen to the music all day! I just have to improve my balance and stamina to get it perfect.

If my memory isn't failing we did the Thodayam too, the one dance I actually do know very well! I still think there are perfections to be done though, as always with a classical art. I really must implement the Natya Kramaha Sloka I think because my eyes are certainly not following my hands throughout this piece. This was followed by the Mooshika Vahana about 4 times, I have still not got through this once without getting something wrong, but I did get Ganesha right this time so woooo, progress is happening!

Now onto the latest addition to our repertoire: the Mallari. We haven't quite finished learning this piece yet and although I absolutely love it, my stamina is absolutely pathetic. I really struggle towards the end, which just so happens to be when is gets faster! In a bid to keep up with the speed my footwork goes haywire too which is clearly not a good thing and there are a few adavus I still can't manage to get right, practice I believe is the only solution here. Despite all of the difficulties I do really love the nuances of the Mallari, which acts as fantastic motivation.

I shall conclude this week's BN Weekly Grind with a quote:
“What is reflected in our dance is not religiosity but spirituality, which has a much wider and universal connotation. It has much to do with harmony and the idea of bringing peace to troubled minds and souls.” - Alarmel Valli

Southall Haul

Bonjour guys!

I went to Southall today to get a variety of things including supplies for doing dance hair. This is my haul, showing you what I got, how much it was, how to use it and where I got it. First off though, I've talked about Southall an awful lot and some of you may be wondering what on earth it is. Southall is a large suburban district of west London, England, and part of the London Borough of Ealing. (Thanks Wiki!) Southall has one of the largest concentrations of South Asian people outside of the Indian sub-continent and is especially known for its concentration of Punjabis. (Oh Wikipedia you clever thing!) Southall is primarily a South Asian residential district, sometimes known as "Little India". According to the Commission for Racial Equality, over 55% of Southall's population of 70,000 is Indian/Pakistani. There are ten Sikh Gurdwaras in Southall. The Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, which opened in 2003, is one of the largest Sikh gurdwaras outside India. There are two large Hindu temples, more than ten Christian churches and three Mosques in Southall. In addition, the signs on the main railway station are bilingual in English and Gurmukhi, which is one of the written scripts of Punjabi. (all again thanks to Wikipedia.) So that's Southall, and it's the go to place for pretty much everything South Asian in the South of England. However it doesn't really cater to classical Indian dance. So what I got today is what is available near to me at little cost.

This is fake hair. It comes ready made in three strands and you plait it into your hair, or you can tie your hair in a bun and attach this below. I got it in a jewellery shop in Palika Bazaar, I have bought things at this shop before and it is good value. These were £5 each, they were available in black and dark brown. Sadly there never seems to be anywhere that caters for classical Indian dancers with blonde hair, you could though dye this hair I suppose. 

This is what the hair looks like out of the box, it's pretty long as you can see. This picture was taken after I brushed it, keep reading for my advice about what to do when you get it home...

This is just to show you the binding at the top. This is a pain to conceal when wearing I have to admit.

Ok so, when I got it home I took it out of the box and brushed it with a paddle brush as I would brush hair normally. I tried to untangle it a bit with my hands first. I then plaited it because this way it should stay untangled and then put it back in the box. 

Please excuse the bad photo! I also bought some paranda today, which I shall talk about in more detail in a minute, so this is just an example of what a paranda would look like at the end of the fake hair. 

You'll be bored of seeing these soon I'm sure! But I just wanted to show what the ones from Southall look like. This was £1.

So this thread/rope is actually made for Sikh men who tie up their beards and despite the packaging it is only the thread inside, not the net. I wanted to use it with the fake hair though. I tied it to the top of the hair and then when it is plaited into the dancer's hair, you can tie it around the hair and downwards like the way ballet pointe shoe ribbons are tied. I got 4 packets, two slighter thinner. They were 69p each from New Fashion House. 

Ok so these are basically scrunchies, they were 3 for £1 and looking at them I realised they were perfect when using a hair doughnut because unlike a regular hair band they are tight enough not to need doubling up and therefore much neater.  

Black embroidery thread. This stuff is gold to an Indian classical dancer. This is ideal for attaching all of the head jewellery as well as the rakodi and tying off the end of the paranda. I got the whole lot for £1. 

Ok so this is a bit boring and perhaps a tad over-priced, they're hairnets, ideal for a neat dancer's bun, they were 2 for £1. 

BUN PINS AT LAST! Or jura pins as they are known in Urdu/Hindi/Punjabi. Above it is hard to tell but the first picture shows smaller pins. There are 10 in each box and they were 2 boxes for £1. 

More bun pins! These look to me to be better quality although I haven't opened them yet. In the second picture you can hopefully see that they are shaped slightly differently from the others I got. Again they were 2 for £1. 

As mentioned Southall doesn't cater for Indian classical dance so this is the nearest I could get to dance flowers. They're actually meant for decorating homes for weddings and festivals but they can be used as a substitute for dance flowers too. They came on one long string and if cut it in two, there would be enough for two dancers. I think it was about £1

So these are the paranda I bought, you might notice that the tassels are tied together, that's how they come when you buy them. You have to cut this off before you use them. 

And lastly, I have finally bought a plastic comb. The handle on combs like this is perfect for parting hair. This was way over-priced in my opinion at £1.89 but there you go!

That concludes my Southall haul, hope you enjoyed it!

Raag Jaunpuri

Top of the evening to ya'! I mentioned a few days ago that I had been to an interesting rehearsal so this post is all about that.

Despite having now officially left school, I am still taking part in an International Evening on 25th June. Naturally I shall be bringing the India/Pakistan plate to the table! I have a friend who is training in Hindustani classical music and so the two of us have paired up to bring Asia to an English grammar school.

It took us ages to decide on what to do, since mr singer is able to sing Hindustani classical raags, bollywood songs and western songs, and I am able to do Kathak, Bharatanatyam and bollywood. We finally decided on one classical raag, one semi-classical song and one bollywood song...

Raag Jaunpuri will be our main piece, it's a classical Hindustani raag and since I am no musician this is what my dear old friend Wikipedia has to say on it:

Jaunpuri or Javanpuri is a rāga in Hindustani classical music in the Asavari thaat. Some experts like Pandit Omkarnath Thakur consider it indistinguishable from the shuddha rishabh Asavari. The name of the rāga may associates it with places of this name such as Javanpur in Gujrat close to Saurastra region and Jaunpur in northern Uttar Pradesh. Yakshagana raga 'Saurastra' is very close to Javanpuri raga.

The arohana is S R m P d m P d n S' and the avarohana is S' n d P d m P g R S. It is usually performed in the late morning (9AM-12 noon). The Pakad is "m P n d P, m P g, R m g

To this raag I am going to attempt to choreograph something along the lines of a Kathak piece, naturally as a student I don't know if I can call it true Kathak and since my knowledge of Hindustani music is limited I don't know if it will fit with the taal etc. but that's what we started working on and I don't think it's going too badly, it's currently a little bit of an angahar exercise here and a snippet of an amad there, so we shall see how it goes. Interestingly mr singer has never been given a raag book by his guru, but rather he writes all of his raags down by hand, so naturally I though "SNAP PICS FOR THE BLOG!" and voila...

The second piece we've decided on is Madhuban Mein Radika, which I'm told is a semi-classical composition, I haven't started working on a choreography for this yet so that should be fun! Here is a link to mr singer singing it...
Madhuban Mein Radika Nache Re - Sohum Shah

Then we have the bollywood piece which I believe is going to be Jashn-e-Bahaara from the film Jodhaa Akbar. Two notes to be made on this: firstly, Jodhaa Akbar is an amazing film so please go and watch it, secondly, the entire soundtrack sounds so much better in Tamil in my opinion. So for this piece I'm thinking I'll improvise mainly but it'll be a Kathak, Bharatanatyam, semi-classical piece. T

Jashn-e-Bahaara (Hindi)

Mulumathy Avalathu Mukhamaakum (Jashn-e-Bahaara in Tamil)

he vague plan is to show somewhat of a development from pure Hindustani classical through to semi-classical right up to bollywood. Hopefully we pull it off!

It'll be the first time I've actually choreographed something, most of the time when I perform semi-classical/bollywood numbers solo they're completely improvised but I thought if I am trying to represent the world of Indian classical music and dance then I should choreograph something using only Kathak vocabulary and see how it goes. I shall continue updates on this as we progress!

Here's a link to the English translation of the Jashn-e-Bahaara lyrics if you're interested...

Lyrics on demand – English Translation of the song ‘Jashn-E-Bahara’ from the movie Jodhaa Akbar

Le Beignet.

Hello all you wonderful dancers! Today I'm doing a quick post requested by a very good blogger/dancer friend of mine. She is the author of the wonderful food blog Uk, Rasoi and Me... so go check out her blog, personally I think the mango choco cake looks amazing!

Also a quick note about the title of this post, it means "doughnut" in French. If you're on a beach in the South of France during summer, you can often hear the "beignet man", who is basically a guy with a tray of doughnuts attached to him and he walks all the way along the beach shouting "BEIGNET! BEIGNET!". In other words you should all go learn French and you'll understand half the things I say better ;)

Why on earth am I writing a post called the doughnut? Well the quick thinkers among you may remember that I posted this blog Doughnuts and Brooches a little while ago and I mentioned that I might do a blog on using a hair doughnut. This is that blog.

So actually I'm not going to post step by step pictures because I don't think that'll help, instead I'm going to post a link to my favourite YouTube videos showing you how to do it.

The first thing you need to know is that there are two methods of doing this and the first method I find works better on thin, shorter hair and is often more secure for dance, whereas the second is better on long hair and would perhaps require a few more pins if dancing. Which brings me to my next point; what you need. Doughnuts as I've mentioned before can be bought anywhere, Primark is the best if you're only looking to spend £1, they come in colours suitable to black, blonde and brunette hair, and in various sizes. If you want the full range of sizes then go to Claire's. Secondly you will need hairpins and I cannot stress enough how much easier it will be if you have bun pins rather than regular hairpins, I am going to Southall on Wednesday to find some bun pins so I'll be able to tell you all about buying them there. These are bun pins in case you weren't sure...

Photo credit: unknown, sorry!

If you want to make your own doughnut then it's really easy; get an old sock and cut off the toe and roll it up, or get an old pair of winter tights and cut off the top and toes so your left with two toe-less legs and then roll them up, that way you get two doughnuts. For a thicker bun use the sleeve of an old knitted jumper.

You can see in this picture on the left a shop-bought bun (£1 from Primark) and on the right a home-made one from a pair of kids' winter tights. 

Here are four videos that I think are good examples, they're easy enough to follow:

How To Make A Perfect Ballet Bun - The first method. I like this video because they use a hairnet in place of pins which is actually a very good idea!

How to do a sock bun on knee length hair - a rather ingenious way of using the doughnut on knee length hair

How to do a simple hair doughnut. - The second method of using the doughnut, it makes a bigger bun but it requires a lot of pins.

How to: Perfect Low Bun - this is a similar method used in the first video but it is in my opinion less secure for dance and takes more time.

This doughnut bun is perfect for Indian classical dance; if you're a Kathak dancer then this is a great alternative to the traditional plait, for Bharatanatyam dancers this is perfect for the bun at the top of your head and it ensures that the flowers can be seen from the front. For Kuchipudi this could easily be used but for a traditional Kuchipudi hairstyle you'll need Kuchipudi supplies. This is of course THE thing for Odissi dancers although I would suggest buying a bigger doughnut for Odissi. For Mohiniyattam again this could be used to great effect. 

So I hope this helped!

The Weekly Grind: Kathak

The Weekly Grind is here again! Kathak edition today ^_^

Today's class killed me to say the least, having had to walk the 1 hour 15 minutes to get there, an hour and a half of hard work was just a tad exhausting! As per usual the room was filled with "eik, do, teen, char, panch, che, saath, aath" for about half an hour. Our Guru told us today that we should be able to do 16 avartan of the fastest speed of tatkaar. Clearly I have some work to do...

We then continued to do a thaat, which I am convinced is going to take me another 10 years minimum to master! There's this really complicated (well complicated to me anyhow) hand movement, which when done by my Guru looks beautiful and effortless, done by me however I think it's probably closer to the cliché screw-in-the-light-bulb move. Thaat is not one of my favourite pieces in Kathak, mainly because I just can't master it, today's session had my Guru screaming "SIDE ASA! TO THE SIDE" to which my mind was saying "umm wait, what's a side? D:" suffice to say Kathak involves a lot of mental concentration as well as physical. Next up was an amad, now I have to say I love this amad, perhaps partially because I can actually do it! I also quite like going through pieces I learnt a while ago over and over again because it's just the best way to perfect something that was mediocre before.

Natarwali ka tukra makes an appearance in class every few weeks or so, which is no bad thing considering it's so physically demanding! In our gharana (Lucknow) there is part of the third variation of the tukra that involves sitting on the floor and I'm rather impressed with myself that I managed to do the sitting part in two speeds today! Yay! Although I can't claim that I don't at this point still look like a jack-in-in-box, but I'm working on it! This was followed by laybandh... about 4 times. As much as laybandh has me looking longingly at my water bottle, I still get really annoyed with myself when I go wrong! I mean having performed it around three times now, you'd think it would come automatically, but no. I guess doing it 4 times was probably a good thing but shhhh I never said that. We may have done something after laybandh that I've forgotten ( it is an hour and a half class after all) but we eventually moved on to the dha-ge-dha-ge-dhin footwork, I have no idea if this exists in other gharanas. I really like the footwork, there's an almost therapeutic rhythm to it but it's so much harder to do it slowly than it is to do it fast!

As much as Kathak class always has me collapsing in a heap when I get home, there are always funny moments that make me laugh! Today had one of my fellow kathak prisoners dancing with the wall because she was being shown a section of the amad that involves moving backwards, which was then followed by a hilarious demonstration of what would have happened had she gone any further by another dancer, so it's all in good fun! The class always takes a lot out of us all, which I think in some ways is quite a funny unifying factor because we're all collapsing on the floor with water in one hand whilst the other hand unties ghungroo at the end of the class, today was clearly a hard class because my Guru tried to drink water from a bottle with its' lid still on, which for some reason I found hilarious.

I also had to get some new ghungroo tied because mine are falling apart, so I took them today along with my old ones which meant I had 480 bells in my bag on the walk there! My Guru has started them for me and I am now to do the rest, so I must be getting on with that soon! Perhaps I'll blog about it...

I shall leave you this evening with a famous quote from the famous Rumi...

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”

The Weekly Grind: Bharatanatyam

Welcome to The Weekly Grind: the Bharatanatyam edition. I'm going to try and post weekly after each dance class, Fridays for Bharatanatyam and Saturdays for Kathak. So welcome to the first ever post...

I am now thoroughly exhausted and am writing this whilst my thighs slowly give up on everything, if you've ever sat in araimandi you know exactly what I'm talking about! Passion and love for an ancient art however always weighs out the pain! After a bharatanatyam hair discussion (oh dance talk!) class eventually started. So a run a through of today's activities you ask? But of course!...

To begin with, the Alarippu. In essence if you start with this piece in your practice then you can let you arms die a little later on (Y). After setting fire to our arms we moved on to the Ganesha Vandana, I don't know if every school of bharatanatyam has this piece but we do, I actually like this piece a lot but after the Alarippu it's a bit of a killer and I always manage to go wrong somewhere! Followed then by my favourite piece, the Thodayam, I have actually managed to survive performing this solo, so I really do quite like it. If you don't follow the Kalamandalam school then the Thodayam is basically the Pushpanjali. This is probably one of the only dances I've managed to pretty much commit to muscle memory, yay! Seven girls from my class are performing on the 29th, their piece is the Mooshika Vahana, or more correctly, the Deva Stuti, so we went through that a few times. I'm still not getting it all right, especially when portraying Goddess Lakshmi, perhaps I'm just not cut out to be wealthy. (See what I did there? ;D ) Then we eventually moved on to the piece we are currently learning; the Mallari. 

I've decided that I have a love-hate relationship with the Mallari. So far I think it's one of my favourite bharatanatyam choreographies but equally it does kill me. I've somehow already learnt the words by heart, and can easily spend a whole day listening to the music over and over again. We still haven't finished learning it but I don't think there is too much left, (he says hopefully.) Luckily for me (and the rest of the class) there are two adults in my class, both amazing dancers and both having studied Bharatanatyam years ago, who always pick up the choreographies, hence they tend to be stationed either in the middle of the class or at either end. Hilariously today when one of them quickly went to get something a somewhat panicked "hey, where's aunty?!" was heard xD

So all in all another great but tiring class. I'm also even more looking forward to being bharatanatyam hair guru for the evening on the 29th! Early start at 10.30 for Kathak class tomorrow, sleep beckons I believe. I will eventually get around to posting about my rehearsal earlier today at some point!

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!

That long thing with tassels.

Well hello again,

I had wanted to do a book review today but alas that never happened, perhaps tomorrow. However when my sister saw her hair on the last post she decided she was famous and wanted to feature again, so today I bring you another hairstyle this time for Kathak. Although really I must find a new hair model because my new celebrity just doesn't have long enough hair. So on with the post because I really should be revising for my last exam tomorrow (Shhhh.)

There are various styles that are traditional for Kathak, the one I did here is using a paranda. That's the long thing with tassles that even Indians often forget the name of. Basically you plait it into the hair and voila instant dance hair, instant being used very loosely here. I have to admit that I think the paranda is a bit outdated for Kathak but a lot of dancers still use it because it's traditional. I know that the famous Pakistani Kathak dancer, Nahid Siddiqui, still wears a paranda when she performs. 

So I used these flowers again because for the moment they're all I have. A lot of Kathak dancers don't use any flowers in their hair but as I said my sister's hair is really short so the paranda looked a bit messy towards the end, hence the flowers covered that. 

This is the length of hair I was working with, just to give y'all some context!

 

This is the paranda. For those of you who don't know it's basically three thick strands of wool or cord with tassels at the end. I'll post some videos below, (that will open in new links because I'm just that clever.) which will show you how to tie a paranda because it's hard to show in photos. You can get paranda's from Southall if you live in the UK, otherwise you'll find them either in areas with a large Pakistani/Indian/Bangladeshi population or online. I think this one cost me £3-£4, so not a lot. 

The Parana Braid - Making and Wearing Your Paranda - this video shows you how to make your own paranda from scratch, which I have tried with success following the video.

French Paranda Braid -this is the video I used when doing this because it shows you how to use a paranda with a french plait as oppose to a regular plait. 

Again all I had to hand was a kangha, albeit a different one to the previous post. (I really must purchase a plastic comb.) I also find that using hairbands to tie the end of the paranda is a nightmare because you can't get the tassels through it, so I did the more traditional Indian thing and used some thick black thread/cord. Again, if you're a dancer, I kid you not, hairpins will be your best friends. I was trying to show in the picture above that they will inevitably get bent out of shape though, just to warn you. 

And so the final product...

So basically I followed the French Paranda Braid video from above and just wrapped the flowers around at the base of the neck and tied them. You need a lot of hairpins for this to be secure enough to do all the chakkars of Kathak and of course hair spray to make all of the small hairs sit flat would be a good idea. I ended up pretty much covering the paranda altogether in the hair but you can have it more visible and of course using a paranda more suited to your hair colour is advisable, you can get gold ones which are better for blonde hair. Also I must mention that for Kathak and Bharatanatyam if you are using a plait it must be tied to the back of your dress. Kathak dresses have strings especially for this. For Kuchipudi however it must be left to hang.

So there you have it, another hair idea for Indian classical dance ^_^ hope you liked it! 

Disclaimer: dance hair for any Indian classical dance is not for the faint-hearted. Your arms will ache and you will get frustrated. But if you stick with it then the results are worth it!

Doughnuts and Brooches

So today I am going to let you in on a little passion of mine; dance hair. For Indian classical dance of course ;)
Today I enlisted the help of my 10 year old sister, she clearly knows me too well because when she got in from school I hugged her and her immediate reaction was "you want something." Anyway eventually she agreed to be my guinea pig. I should mention that she used to have quite long hair, about halfway down her back but she has recently cut it all of, inspired by her childhood hair idol, the "petit filous girl" ...

^ the "petit filous girl"

Her hair is a little longer than this, as in it just brushes her shoulders, this being important because I hear a lot of dancers saying "oh I can't do dance hair, my hair is too short." So below are my attempts at creating this style...

Photo credit: unknown, sorry!

This style is for Bharatanatyam and none of the things I used are designed for Bharatanatyam so here is how to get a look like this using stuff you can find in Southall basically. If you've never been to India or Southall then you haven't lived and if you are Indian then Southall is your home from home (or more specifically Punjab from Punjab) in the UK. 

Ok so these are the flowers, known as "gajra/gajrey" in Hindi/Urdu/Punjabi which is what you should ask for if you're looking for them in Southall. Basically they're made of plastic and the strings at the end are annoyingly short but they do the trick. They are not easy to find, even in Southall. These were the last pair the shop had and that was after looking in like 5 other shops! I don't think they cost me more than £5 for the pair so pretty cheap too.

Ok so traditionally you should use a rakodi, that's the circular metal ornament that goes at the back of the head, but since you have to get them from India, I found an alternative: brooches! If you have an English grandmother like I do, then she will no doubt have some of these hidden in a forgotten corner somewhere, which is where I got these from. If however you don't then you'll find them at car boot sales (if you don't know what a car boot sale is then the rock you're living under must be huge.). All good charity shops should have them going cheaply too. They're a bit small but the plus side is that you can use the pin on the back to pin them into hair as you would pin them into clothes. 

This is a kangha. In short, I am a Sikh and Sikhs aren't supposed to cut their hair, when we keep our hair we have to comb it with a kangha; a small wooden comb. I think a plastic comb would work better but since I didn't have one at hand but had about 6 kanghas at hand, a kangha is what I used. I have read that the fact that it's wood is supposed to reduce static electricity in hair, no idea if that's true. The point being that a brush alone won't do, you will need a comb. 

These are hair doughnuts, a dancer’s best friend. I shall perhaps do a post on the two ways of wearing them but that is for a later date. The one on the left is one I bought,  in most shops they are around £5 I found, but I got this one in Primark for £1, H&M also sell them for around £1.50. The one on the right is made from a pair of tights, if you want the details they were girls’ black thick tights. Basically you cut off the top part of the tights so you are left with two separate legs, then cut of the toes and roll them into a doughnut. I actually find that the home-made one is much easier to use. These are essential for doing this style with short hair. 

and this is the rest of what I used. To do this style you split the hair in two, as if you’re tying a half ponytail, then tie these two halves into two ponytails and then put in the doughnut securing it with more hairbands. The colour doesn’t matter because they will be covered but the thicker hairbands work best. I also used a very small scrunchie because, as I said, my sister has short hair and so on the lower bun I couldn’t double up a hairband, hence I had to use the scrunchie because it’s small and so is secure without being doubled up. If you’re a dancer, you’ll know that hairpins are basically a part of who you are. Ideally you’d have a big stash of bun pins or “U” pins. It would seem however that outside of the South Asian community, only ballet dancers use them, so they are really hard to find unless you are in South Asia, or a particularly South Asian area. Hence I used normal hairpins, the longer ones are stronger and are good for jabbing in the bun to keep it in place, the smaller ones are better for securing the flowers and stray hairs. 

And so the final product...

Well I hope you liked this post, I hope to do some more hair posts in the future! Perhaps Kathak hair next...