India is the motherland of various dance forms, from classical to folk and modern Indian dance forms. The dance is highly incorporated in the Hindu religion and the three most important deities Krishna, Shiva and Kali are typically presented as dancing. There are hundreds of Indian dance forms, and depending from which part of India or from which tribes they derive Indian dance forms can be as divers as the incredibility of mother India. Among many Indian dance forms noticed on many regional festivals some special dances like Bhangra, Bihu, Ghumura Dance, Sambalpuri, Chhau and Garba are among the most popular ones.
The classical Indian dance form originates since 400 BC. An Indian dance form to be considered as classical has to follow the guidelines form the Natyashastra an ancient Indian dissertation, which explains the Indian art of performing written by Bharata Muni an Indian musicologist. Many classical Indian dances are performed to worship Krishna, to describe Vishnu or to illustrate events from the Puranas.
Bharata Natyam is a classical Indian dance form that originates form Tamil Nadu in South India. Today, this is one of the most popular Indian dance forms and broadly performed and practiced by many dancers from different parts of the world. Bharata Natyam is believed to be the “fire dance” and it is said that it performs the mystic manifestation of the fire as an element in the human body. The movements that the dancer of this Indian dance form performs resemble the movements of the dancing fire. Bharata Natyam is practiced as Natya Yoga or the Dance Yoga but very rarely and it taken as a sacred meditation tradition. Bharata Natyam is a solo dance and has two main aspects, lasya the elegant feminine dance performed by the Goddess Parvaty and tandava is the masculine aspect, represents the dance performed by Lord Shiva. This Indian dance form is manifestation of the celebration of the eternal universe throughout the celebration of the beautiful material human body.
Ghoomar is another Indian dance form which evolved in Rajasthan from the Bhil tribe, later adopted by all Rajasthani communities. This dance is performed by women in long colourful swirling ‘Ghaghara’ typical Rajasthani skirt along with man while singing together. Gidha is a folk Indian dancing form performed by the women in the Punjabi region. The Gidha dance is performed by women creating a circle and all of them clapping their hands singing humorous couplets in Punjabi language, wile doing mimicry acting as their mother in law or sister in law and a humble bride. After this couple of women come in the centre of the circle and start to perform a dance. The dance shows situations from the life of typical Punjabi woman.
