Dance

Bharatanatyam Tamil Nadu

History

Bharatanatyam descends from the temple dance of Tamil Nadu performed for centuries by devadasis (women dedicated to temple service), where it was known as sadir. In the 19th century the "Thanjavur Quartet" — four brother-musicians at the Thanjavur court — codified the concert repertoire still used today. After colonial-era stigma and anti-dedication legislation nearly extinguished the art, reformers such as E. Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi Arundale (founder of Kalakshetra, Chennai, 1936) revived and re-staged it in the 20th century under its modern name.

Details & Technique

Built on the bent-knee stance araimandi, geometric lines, rhythmic footwork units called adavus, and a rich gesture vocabulary. A traditional recital (margam) moves through items such as alarippu, jatiswaram, varnam (the centrepiece) and tillana, accompanied by Carnatic vocal music, mridangam and nattuvangam (rhythmic syllables and cymbals).

Significance

By common scholarly description among the oldest codified classical dance traditions of India, and now a global ambassador of Indian culture, taught on every continent.

Kathak North India — Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan

History

Kathak takes its name from the kathakars — wandering storytellers who narrated epics and legends of Krishna through gesture and song. In the Mughal era it entered royal courts, absorbing Persian-influenced refinement, virtuosic footwork and spins. Three main gharanas (stylistic lineages) crystallised: Lucknow (noted for expressive grace), Jaipur (noted for rhythmic power) and Banaras.

Details & Technique

Signature elements include tatkar (rapid heelwork sounded through ghungroos — ankle bells whose number varies by training stage and tradition), lightning chakkars (pirouettes), rhythmic dialogue with the tabla, and gat-bhava storytelling. It is deeply intertwined with Hindustani music, danced to teentaal and other rhythmic cycles.

Significance

A unique bridge of Hindu and Indo-Persian court cultures; its rhythm-play deeply influenced Indian cinema choreography.

Kathakali Kerala

History

Kathakali ("story-play") took shape in Kerala around the 17th century, evolving from earlier temple and martial traditions including Ramanattam and Krishnanattam, with movement vocabulary influenced by the martial art Kalaripayattu. The poet Vallathol Narayana Menon founded Kerala Kalamandalam (1930), the institution that anchored its modern revival.

Details & Technique

All-night performances of episodes from the epics, traditionally by male troupes. Characters are classified by elaborate painted makeup types — pacha (green, noble heroes), kathi (anti-heroes), thadi (bearded), kari and minukku — with towering headgear and billowing skirts. Actors "speak" entirely through mudras and extraordinarily trained eye and facial muscles, to sung narration accompanied by chenda and maddalam drums.

Significance

One of the world's most visually spectacular theatre forms and a defining emblem of Kerala's culture.

Kuchipudi Andhra Pradesh

History

Named after the village of Kuchipudi in Andhra Pradesh's Krishna district, where brahmin performing troupes staged devotional dance-dramas. Tradition credits the 16th–17th-century saint-poet Siddhendra Yogi with shaping the form and its signature drama Bhama Kalapam. In the 20th century, gurus such as Vedantam Lakshminarayana Sastry and Vempati Chinna Satyam refined it into a concert solo art as well.

Details & Technique

Combines fast, springy footwork with fluid grace and strong dramatic characterisation; dancers traditionally speak or sing as characters. Its most famous virtuosic item is tarangam, danced balancing on the rim of a brass plate, sometimes with a water pot on the head.

Significance

Preserves the older dance-drama mode alongside the modern solo recital, and remains the flagship classical art of the Telugu-speaking states.

Odissi Odisha

History

Rooted in the temple culture of Odisha — the maharis (temple dancers of the Jagannath temple, Puri) and the gotipua tradition of boys dancing in female costume. Sculptures at Konark and Bhubaneswar temples echo its poses, and the Odisha caves at Udayagiri are often cited among the oldest performance-related sites in India. Nearly lost by the mid-20th century, Odissi was reconstructed in the 1950s by gurus including Kelucharan Mohapatra, Pankaj Charan Das and Deba Prasad Das.

Details & Technique

Famed for its sculptural quality: the tribhangi (three-bend) posture and the square chauka stance associated with Lord Jagannath. Repertoire typically moves from mangalacharan through pallavi (pure dance blossoming a raga) to expressive abhinaya, often set to the 12th-century Sanskrit poem Gita Govinda of Jayadeva.

Significance

A model case of 20th-century revival: rebuilt from temple sculpture, palm-leaf manuscripts and surviving practitioners into one of the most lyrical classical styles.

Manipuri (Ras Lila) Manipur

History

Manipuri dance grows from the indigenous ritual tradition of Lai Haraoba and flowered in its classical Ras Lila form after Vaishnavism became Manipur's court religion in the 18th century, notably under King Bhagyachandra, credited with designing the distinctive Ras costume. Rabindranath Tagore invited Manipuri gurus to Santiniketan in the early 20th century, helping introduce the style to the rest of India.

Details & Technique

Characterised by soft, continuous, rounded movements with no sharp jerks or heavy footwork — the dancer seems to float. Female Ras dancers wear the stiff, richly embroidered barrel skirt (kumil) and translucent veil. The male drum-dance Pung Cholom, in which drummers leap and spin while playing, is a celebrated companion tradition; the related devotional singing-drumming form Sankirtana is inscribed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Significance

A living fusion of pre-Vaishnav Meitei ritual and Krishna devotion, treated in Manipur as worship rather than entertainment.

Mohiniyattam Kerala

History

The "dance of Mohini" — the divine enchantress of Hindu mythology — is Kerala's classical solo dance for women. It received notable patronage in the 19th century at the Travancore court of Swathi Thirunal, declined under colonial-era disapproval, and was revived in the 20th century through Kerala Kalamandalam, with gurus such as Kalamandalam Kalyanikutty Amma shaping its modern repertoire.

Details & Technique

Emphasises lasya — graceful, swaying movement often compared to Kerala's palms and backwaters — with a gentle up-and-down torso undulation, subtle abhinaya, and the iconic white-and-gold kasavu costume with side-bun hairstyle. Music is Carnatic-based, with compositions in Malayalam and Manipravalam.

Significance

Embodies a distinctly feminine aesthetic within the classical canon and carries Kerala's lyric poetry tradition on stage.

Sattriya Assam

History

Created in the 15th–16th centuries by the Assamese saint-reformer Srimanta Sankardev as a vehicle of Vaishnav devotion, and preserved for five centuries inside the sattras (monasteries) of Assam, especially on Majuli island. Monks performed it as daily ritual and in Ankiya Naat (one-act devotional plays). The Sangeet Natak Akademi recognised Sattriya as a classical dance in 2000 — the most recent addition to the canon.

Details & Technique

Includes both vigorous masculine and graceful feminine styles, danced to borgeet (devotional songs composed by Sankardev and his disciple Madhavdev), the khol drum and cymbals, in costumes of Assam's pat silk.

Significance

A rare example of a classical art preserved by a living monastic community rather than courts or temples-with-dancers, now flourishing on the proscenium stage with women performers as well.

Bhangra & Giddha Punjab

Bhangra, the exuberant men's harvest dance of Punjab, is powered by the double-headed dhol drum, leaping shoulder movements and joyous boliyan couplets; Giddha is its sparkling women's counterpart of claps, satire and song. Once tied to the Baisakhi harvest, Bhangra has become a global genre through the Punjabi diaspora, fusing with hip-hop and electronic music while village and collegiate troupes keep the traditional vocabulary alive.

Garba & Dandiya Raas Gujarat

During the nine nights of Navratri, communities dance Garba in concentric circles around a central lamp or image of the Goddess — the circle symbolising the cycle of time with the divine at its still centre — and Dandiya Raas with clicking wooden sticks recalling Krishna's raas and the Goddess's sword-play. Garba was inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2023, and today fills stadiums from Ahmedabad to New Jersey.

Ghoomar Rajasthan

The swirling dance of Rajasthani women, traditionally associated with the Bhil community and later the Rajput courts, performed on festive occasions in sweeping ghaghara skirts whose pirouetting flare gives the dance its name (from ghoomna, to twirl). Songs celebrate weddings, festivals and desert life; the veiled dancers' measured spins make it one of India's most photographed folk forms.

Kalbelia Rajasthan

The serpentine dance of the Kalbelia community, hereditary snake-charmers of the Thar desert. Women in swirling black embroidered skirts mirror the movements of the cobra, to the haunting reed drone of the pungi (been) and the rhythm of the dholak and khanjari. UNESCO inscribed Kalbelia song and dance on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2010. Gulabo Sapera is its most celebrated modern performer.

Lavani Maharashtra

A powerful combination of song and dance performed to the beat of the dholki, historically staged in tamasha folk theatre. Performed by women in nine-yard saris, Lavani ranges from the devotional to the wittily sensual, and historically served both as entertainment for weary soldiers and as sharp social commentary. Its rhythmic intensity has heavily influenced Marathi cinema and stage.

Chhau Odisha, Jharkhand & West Bengal

A semi-classical martial dance-drama in three regional styles — Mayurbhanj (Odisha, danced without masks), Seraikella (Jharkhand) and Purulia (West Bengal), the latter two famous for their dramatic masks. Drawing on mock combat, bird-and-animal gaits and episodes from the epics, Chhau is danced at the spring Chaitra Parva festival to drums and mohuri. UNESCO inscribed Chhau on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2010.

Bihu Assam

The dance of Assam's spring new-year festival (Rongali/Bohag Bihu), performed by young men and women with brisk hip and arm movements to the dhol, the buffalo-horn pepa and cymbals. Dancers wear golden muga silk; songs celebrate love, youth and the awakening land. In 2023 a widely reported mass Bihu performance in Guwahati earned a Guinness World Record — a moment of pride celebrated across Assam.

Dollu Kunitha Karnataka

Karnataka's thundering drum dance: performers carry the large barrel-shaped dollu slung at the waist, beating it with sticks and palms while wheeling through circles, weaves and acrobatic formations that grow faster and tighter as the dance builds. Traditionally performed by the Kuruba community and associated with the worship of Beereshwara (Beeralingeswara), it is today a fixture of festivals, processions and the Mysuru Dasara — the sound carries across an entire village.

Kamsale Karnataka

A devotional art of the devotees of Male Mahadeshwara, the deity of the M.M. Hills: dancers sing the deity's epic ballads while striking the kamsale — a pair of bronze cymbal-like discs — in flashing, rhythmic patterns that are dance, music and worship at once. Traditionally learned as a hereditary devotional practice, it grows from a simple seated bhajan style into spectacular whirling ensemble choreography, and is now also staged by folk troupes across the state.

Veeragase Karnataka

A fierce, vigorous dance of Karnataka's Veerashaiva (Lingayat) tradition, enacting the fury of Veerabhadra — the warrior born of Shiva's wrath. Dancers in Veerabhadra costume, with painted brows and swords, perform to pounding drums and narrate the Daksha-yajna story in bursts of leaping, stamping intensity. It is performed during Dasara processions and temple festivals, often alongside Dollu Kunitha and Kamsale.

Kodava Dances of Kodagu (Coorg) Karnataka

The Kodava community of the Kodagu hills keeps its own distinct dance heritage, performed at festivals such as Puttari (the rice harvest) and Kailpodh: the graceful women's circle dance Ummathat, danced in traditional dress around a lamp with small cymbals, and men's ceremonial dances including Bolak-aat, performed with chowries and accompanied by traditional drumming. Kodava dance, dress and festival culture form one of Karnataka's most distinctive micro-traditions, maintained proudly by community associations at home and across the diaspora.

Yakshagana Coastal Karnataka — see Theatre

Karnataka's great night-long dance-drama of blazing costumes and towering headdresses is covered in full on the Theatre & Storytelling page — as a dance-drama it lives where dance, music and acting meet. It belongs in any picture of Karnataka's dance heritage, so consider this a signpost.

Rouf, Koli, Karagattam & the wider map across India

The folk map is inexhaustible: Kashmir's gentle women's line-dance Rouf at Eid and harvest; Maharashtra's fisherfolk Koli dance with its oar-and-wave motions; Tamil Nadu's Karagattam, balancing decorated water-pots in honour of the rain goddess Mariamman; Telangana's revived warrior dance Perini Shivatandavam; the communal stick dances and tribal circle dances of central and northeast India. Each deserves its own study — this page is a doorway, not a census.