Indian dance

Dance in India comprises numerous styles of dances, generally classified as classical or folk. As with other aspects of Indian culture, different forms of dances originated in different parts of India, developed according to the local traditions and also imbibed elements from other parts of the country. Sangeet Natak Academy, the national academy for performing arts in India, recognizes eight traditional dances as Indian classical dances, while other sources and scholars recognize more. These have roots in the Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, and the religious performance arts of Hinduism. Folk dances are numerous in number and style and vary according to the local tradition of the respective state, ethnic, or geographic region. Contemporary dances include refined and experimental fusions of classical, folk, and Western forms. Dancing traditions of India have influence not only over the dances in the whole of South Asia, but on the dancing forms of Southeast Asia as well. Dances in Indian films, like Bollywood Dance for Hindi films, are often noted for freeform expression of dance and hold a significant presence in the popular culture of the Indian subcontinent. In India, a command over either of Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Meitei (Manipuri), Persian, or Arabic, are highly appreciated and respected for learning dances (most significantly Indian Classical Dances) as dancers could have the tools of these languages to go into the primary material texts.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Dance in India”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Indian dance is classical to folk dance arts of India, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶