Indian Classical Dance

Language: English
Pages: 179 (Illustrated Throughout In B/W)


Preface to the Second Edition

It is always gratifying for an author to known that a second edition of his book is needed or expected. In this case I am doubly gratified because between the writing and the publication of the first edition and today, many valuable and important monographs have appeared on Indian Classical Dance. In 1971, despite the valuable work of the early writers-coomaraswamy, Bharata Iyer, La Meri and the popular book of G. Banerjee, hardly anything was available for the general reader.

My attempt in the first edition was to introduce the classical or, what I have called, neo-classical dance forms, in a lucid manner for the 'enlightened reader'. Understandably, no attempt was made to go into the complex evolution of the dance forms in relation to the Indian aesthetic theory and the other arts, especially, those of architecture, sculpture and music. As I have stated in the introduction to the first edition, the attempt was to present, as clearly as possible, the literary, sculptural and epigraphic evidence of the region which form the basis of identifying the history of evolution, but would not, necessarily, be history itself. Also, the focus was on technique, the nature of movement, articulation, shape. Form, effort, energy rather than the repertoire with its literary or poetic content.

Over these two decades much has happened in the fields of both dance as performance as also classical dance as an ingredient of contemporary theatre. Alongside many monographs have appeared on specific dance styles. My own book has been followed by several others where an attempt has been made to probe deeper into the primary archaeological and literary sources as also the history of the relationship of dance and painting