Bharatanatyam is the most popular of Indian dances and belongs to the South Indian states of Tamilnadu and Karnataka. Its antiquity is well established. In the past it was practiced and performed in the temples by a class of dancers known as the devadasis. It was a part of the religious rituals and has a long and hoary past. The kings and the princely courts patronised the temples, as well as the various traditions sustaining the dance form. The salient features of Bharatanatyam are movements conceived in space mostly either along straight lines or triangles. In terms of geometrical designs, the dancer appears to weave a series of triangles besides several geometrical patterns.
It is vibrant, lyrical and colorful dance technique enfolded by the nritta & nrithya- pure dance and dance with emotions. This form has devotion or philosophy as its main stay for its source of subject and has divine concept of cosmos and the cosmic dancer Lord Nataraja is considered as the primordial.
In nritta (pure dance) to the chosen time cycle and a raga (melody), a dancer executes patterns that reveal the architectonic beauty of the form with a series of dance units called jathis or teermanams. The torso is used as a unit, the legs are in a semi-plie form and the stance achieves the basic posture called araimandi. The nritta numbers include Alarippu, Jatiswaram and Tillana, which are abstract items not conveying and specific meaning except that of joyous abandon with the dancer creating variegated forms of staggering visual beauty.
