Dances of India - Learning Bharata Natyam

Starring:Padma Chebrolu
Director: David Morrison
Studio: Cultural Centre of India LLC
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Description
Namaste! This is how we greet each other in India. It means "I bow to the God in you." Our culture and art are both ancient and spiritual. Classical dances of India are born in the temples and are the dances of the mind, the soul and the divine. These dance traditions still follow the rules set by Guru Bharata in his Natya Sastra (Science of Dancing) from second century AD. This dance instructional DVD is created for aspiring dancers who want to learn the basic technique and practice on a regular basis to become magnificent dancers.

Learning any art takes time and practice. At the end, the rewards are wonderful. This is an attempt to introduce you to the technique and inspire you to pursue this art further. This DVD disc features interactive menus and chapter marks for easy access to your desired dance step or scene.

Some of the highlights of this DVD include: 1.Salutation, 2.Basic Positions, 3.Single Hand Gestures, 4.Warm up Exercises, 5.Steps Series One, 6.Head Movements, 7.Eye Movements, 8.Neck Movements, 9.Steps Series Two, 10.Double Hand Gestures, 11.Poses, 12.Costumes & Make Up, 13.Ananda Natanam Dance.

In this DVD, Padma Chebrolu demonstrates how she has taken her years of intense Bharata Natyam training and teaching experience to the dance studio. She instructs the viewer just as she trains her students in private classes. All of the steps are taught in simpler and smaller segments to make it easy to follow. Padma uses well organized material and standard teaching method throughout.

Description

Namaste! This is how we greet each other in India. It means "I bow to the God in you." Our culture and art are both ancient and spiritual. Classical dances of India are born in the temples and are the dances of the mind, the soul and the divine. These dance traditions still follow the rules set by Guru Bharata in his Natya Sastra (Science of Dancing) from second century AD. This dance instructional DVD is created for aspiring dancers who want to learn the basic technique and practice on a regular basis to become magnificent dancers.

This DVD teaches traditional Bharata Natyam as performed by hundreds of millions of Indians all over the world. If you are interested in India and its arts, this DVD is a must for you.

Customer Reviews:

Hardly any dancing instruction.......2007-05-16

Very dissapointed. More talk than dance and hardly any instruction. Waste of money

Not a workout!!!.......2007-02-23

I'm thrilled that "instructional" means instructional. Padma says things once and expects the viewer to make full use of the 'back' button on the remote. I'm rather tired of how-to dance videos that muddy up technique with aerobics.

However, the instructor is rather sloppy about her technique and I get the impression that this is a video to teach the language of the dance rather than the dance itself. (To learn ballet, one must know 'plie'... to learn Bharata Natyam, one must know 'mudra').

I recommed this as a "pre-beginning" tool, for students who have access to a guru to become familiar with the vocabulary of the dance before taking lessons.

I am aware that many dance students do not have a guru to teach them Bharata Natyam, and for those students, I urge caution. Yes, this DVD can teach basic technique, but do not use it as a definitive resource. Also remember that this dance pays homage to dieties, and should not be performed without propper training and respect. I would have appreciated if if Padma was more clear on the division of the religious and decorative aspects of the dance, but she presumes that a serious dancer will find a guru to learn from.

It's a bargain.......2006-05-25

This is a good introduction video for those who are just curious about Bharatnatyam and who are not planning to practise it, even if this video is mis-named as "instructional". Of course, it is a pity there are no online trailers of it, but at least you can find a lot of its screenshots on jayq.org . Considering the virtual absence of any other well-structured instructional Bharatnatyam DVDs that present most of its aspects, I think that $25 is a good bargain for "Learning Bharata Natyam".

Basics in a nutshell - celebrating the commercial birth of the American "Bharatanatyam".......2006-05-24

First of all, it was odd to read in the Product description that the author thinks that "Bharata Natyam as performed by hundreds of millions of Indians all over the world". In reality, less than 1 among 10000 Indians know even the basics of Bharatnatyam.

This DVD lets you watch 28 mudras, 20 hastas, 3 warm-up exercises (which is ridiculously inadequate), 8 head movements, 8 eye movements, 4 neck (stiff!) movements, 10 "poses", and 29 steps at 2 speeds. Considering that each DVD player can let you play the movie at half or quater speed, the whole idea of giving 2 speeds is foolish as there is no explanation of the different phases (and common errors) of the movements. The "guru" herself does not seem to realize the miriad of errors that she makes herself.

The cameraman was unaware of the difference between shooting a belly dancer and a Bharatanatyam dancer: very often the dancer's hands and feet in this DVD are cut out of the frame, and only the dancer's face and stomach are visible.

What surprised me most in "Dances of India - Learning Bharata Natyam" is the rather useless ("talking head" only) lenghthy introduction (7 minutes). All in all, nearly half of all the time in this DVD we see Padma Chebrolu's "talking head" - rather awkward for a "Bharatanatyam guru" too.

Don't expect to find anything useful in the "Costumes & Make-up" section. You can learn as much from here as from seeing 1 photo of a Bharatanatyam dancer.

The instructor, a full-time software engineer with an MBA, is well-aware of the inadequate quality of her demonstrations of something that is presented as "Bharata Natyam". If Tony Blair loses his job soon, he might well go to India and teach western ballet there. He will surely be better at it than P.Chebrolu at Bharata Natyam.

Anyone who knows how to search the Internet can find Bharata Natyam DVD trailers from Padma Chebrolu's "Learning Bharata Natyam" and see that it is no match for serious instructional Bharatnatyam DVDs like, for example, SriDevi Nrithyalaya's videos.

I bought this "Dances of India - Learning Bharata Natyam" DVD from Amazon out of curiosity, and now regret paying so much for another piece of junk.

Comparatively speaking, this is a pricey DVD - definitely not a bargain!.......2006-02-24

Among the educational Bharatnatyam DVDs, this one is the most expensive. Yes, the image quality is better than in, for example, the Drishya Bharatham DVDs, but what about the accuracy and precision of the technique, and clarity of explanations? Of course we cannot compare J.Suryanarayanamurthy, a Kalakshetra professor, with P.Chebrolu. So why P.Chebrolu's DVD should be 3 times more expensive than J.Suryanarayanamurthy's?

Instead of giving too many cultural introduction (we all can read books, and do not need lectures on DVDs!), P.Chebrolu should have given more time to actually show and explain the moves deeper.

Anyone who actually tries to learn anything with this DVD will end up with too many unanswered questions.

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