Dance dramas

Dance dramas is

We all love stage play and if it is in a MusicAL form we love it even more. Dance dramas are nothing but musical stage plays or in other words a drama performed through dance movements, often combined with dialogues. Dance dramas are often common to all dance forms. In classical forms they usually take stories from the epics and other stories based on Hindu mythology and perform the dance drama based on that theme, while in the West, singers and musicians perform the Opera, a dramatic work combining text, called a libretto, and musical score. While dance dramas are common in classical forms like Bharathanatyam, Kuchipudi, Odissi, etc, there also exist dance forms exclusively containing only dance dramas. One such most popular form is Kathakali, the prominent folk dance of Kerala. Kathakali is a pure drama form where the characters dress up in different forms and stage the plays based on epics and other scriptures. A form of folk dance drama which can be commonly seen in the streets of Tamil Nadu is the Therukoothu, where people perform musical plays on the streets to entertain the public. This type of plays in the recent trend usually concentrates on awareness themes to educate the public. An ancient form of dance drama distinctive to the Tamils is the Kuravanji. This is an entertainment piece that well balances classical and folk art. There are hundreds of Kuravanjis in Tamil. The earliest patron of this art was King Rajaraja Chola. He constructed a platform called Kuravanji Medai in the big temple at Thanjavur for holding Kuravanji performances during the annual festival. In each Kuravanji, the heroine, a dancing girl falls in love with the local presiding deity or the ruler of the land. She appears to the god of love to grant her wish and describes the divine being's state procession, the natural wealth of the area, its fertility. Fortune telling by reading the palm is also one of the features of Kuravanji. In addition to the gypsy women, songsters, instrumental musicians and dancing girls add to the charm of the art. The heroine entreats her maids to relieve her suffering by bringing her lover to her. Some of the popular Kuravanjis are Thirukkutrala Kuravanji, Viralimalai Kuravanji, Azhagar Kuravanji, Thirumalai Andavar Kuravanji and Sendil Kuravanji. Yakshagana is a dance drama popular in coastal and Malenadu regions of Karnataka. It is believed to have evolved from pre-classical music and theatre. It has drawn comparisons to the Western tradition of opera. Actors wear costumes and enact various roles. Traditionally, Yakshagana would go on all night. Yakshagana literally means the song of a Yaksha, an exotic tribe mentioned in the Sanskrit literature of ancient India. The performances usually depict a story from the Hindu epics and puranas. It consists of a narrator, Baghawatha who either narrates the story by singing or sings pre-composed dialogs of a character, backed by musicians playing on traditional musical INSTRUMENTS as the actors dance to the music, with actions that portray the story as it is being narrated. Koodiyattam, of Kerala is a 2000-year-old traditional Sanskrit theatre performed in Hindu temples. It is officially recognised by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. This is the only surviving specimen of the ancient Sanskrit theatre. It is believed that Kulasekhara Varman Cheraman Perumal, an ancient king of Kerala, who ruled from Mahodayapuram, reformed Koodiyattam, introducing the local language for Vidusaka and structuring the presentation of the play to well defined units. The Kutiyattam performance was confined to the temple precincts of Kerala in specially constructed theatres called Kutampalams. Krishnanattam, another form of dance drama, is a temple art in Kerala. It presents the story of Krishna in a series of eight plays and was created by Manaveda (1585-1658 A.D), the then Zamorin Raja of Calicut in northern Kerala. The eight plays are Avataram, Kaliyamardanam, Rasakrida, Kamsavadham, Swayamvaram, Banayuddham, Vividavadham and Swargarohanam. It survives in its glory at the Guruvayur Sri Krishna Temple.