Shalini Nair enters the stage at the Venice Performing Arts Center in front of her close friends and family, flowers in hand, ready to perform. The day she has been working towards for many years has finally come, and she couldn’t be more ready to showcase her talent.
Nair, a Pine View senior, performed traditional Bharatanatyam Arangetram, a sophisticated classical dance with a very elaborate meaning, on September 21.
Bharatanatyam refers to the style of dance, and Arangetram is a performance-such as a dance-to showcase the end of a dancer’s years worth of training. A Bharatanatyam Arangetram is defined as a solo performance that signifies the completion of initial formal training of a young dancer in Indian classical dance.
“I’ve learned this since I was like five years old, so it’s been 12 years now,” Nair said.
When dancers first begin to dance, they start out small by learning the basic footsteps and will eventually incorporate the hand movements called mudras into the dance. After learning the basics, dancers begin learning constructed dances. In the beginning these dances are typically two minutes long, but as you progress, they will get longer.
“The longest one would be a 30-minute-long dance,” Nair explained.
The dance teacher, guru, exposes the dancers to performing early on, so that when the time comes to have their own Bharatanatyam (if they wish), it won’t be as daunting for them. For the dancers that do choose to do this dance, their whole training is a build-up to this performance.
However, the Bharatanatyam is done to live music, unlike other performances the dancer may have experienced, which is yet another aspect that makes this dance so unique.
This dance originated from Tamil Nadu, a region in south India over 2000 years ago. The dance is characterized by a lot of crisp steps and movements. The dance steps, musical notes, and vocals that contribute to the dance reflect the ideas of the Sanskrit treatise Natya Shastra and other Sanskrit and Tamil texts.
“We use our facial expressions, our hands, as well as footwork to convey a message,” Shaila Sateesh, Nair’s guru, said.
Sateesh has been a dance instructor for over 20 years and has known Nair as her student for over 10 years. As a teacher, she makes the final call as to when a student is ready for their big performance.
“She did fantastic, with full confidence and she enjoyed herself,” Sateesh said. “As a teacher its really gratifying to see that she came through with flying colors.”
In Nair’s performance, there were eight different dances, each with their own meaning, starting with the introductory piece, Pushpanjali. “Pushpa” means “flowers” and “anjali” means “offering with folded hands,” so for this part of the dance Nair entered the stage with flowers in her folded hands. This part of the dance formally addresses the audience, and she bows down to the lord of dance (Nataraja).
This part of the dance goes along with Arangetram meaning “ascending the stage.” An Arangetram can be done in any type of performance whether it is singing, music, or other styles of dance. This part specifically is the graduation of the dancer’s training.
“It’s a significant milestone in a dancer’s life because after that point you’ve kind of made the transition from ‘Oh, I’m learning dance,’ to ‘Now I’m like an adult dancer,’” Nair said.
Following the introduction would be another dance like Jatiswaram for example. This piece is a little different from others because this dance involves solely steps and rhythms without lyrics like the other pieces.
Other dances in the performance, like Keerthanam and Padam, tell the stories from the ancient texts.
“A lot of the times, the dances will be like stories that come from ancient folk tales and legends regarding Hindu religious texts,” Nair said.
Then comes the Varnam, a thirty minute dance, and the climax of the performance. This number is the most elaborate, including steps that tell a long story that the dancer enacts with facial expressions and hand movements. This section is very demanding, especially physically, and it really unveils the dedication the dancer put into the dance.
Nair’s love for dance started from watching her sister and other kids perform their own Bharatanatyams. Her family has also always been very emerged into their culture, so the strong community of cultural dancing has always inspired her to be a part of it.
“It keeps me rooted to my culture a lot; it helps me understand a lot of things about my culture that I might not have understood before,” Nair said.
This performance was about personal growth in dance, representing her culture, and putting on a show for her guests to enjoy.