LILA AND BHARATA (Latvia)
Friday, August 9, at 6:45 PM Opera square
“Lila” and “Bharata” are two Indian classical dance studios that in festival RE RE Rīga! will offer a joint performance, combining two classical styles – northern Indian Kathak and southern Indian Bharatanatyam. Indian classical dance is multifaceted and ancient form of art which is closely linked to music, literature, sculpture, painting and in particular the Indian spiritual culture.
Indian dance studio “Lila” was the first one in Latvia that in 2003 started learning northern Indian classical dance Kathak in the tradition of Jaipur school. This dance form traces its origins to the nomadic bards of ancient northern India, telling stories in the form of dance about the lives of Gods. Nowadays, this dance form also contains temple and ritual dance elements. From the 16th century onwards it absorbed certain features of Persian and central Asian dance elements that were imported by the royal courts of the Mughal era. Kathak dance is characterized by high speed and lots of signature spins. With each step little bells around the dancers feet repeat percussion beat at times reaching incredible speed.
Indian dance studio “Bharata” has started in the 2006, representing the classical south Indian dance Bharatanatyam. Bharatanatyam is kind of a dance-prayer or dance-conversation that earlier was performed in Shiva temples by devadasi – temple dancers. All Bharatanatyam movements are performed in strict geometric trajectories. Each dancer’s posture, each movement, each head turn, facial expression and hand gesture have a semantic meaning. Dance stories source is ancient Indian mythology.
More info at:
http://www.bharata.lv/
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