Dance: Multicultural Dance Books

Dance in India has been deemed sacred because of its innate capacity to visualise and actualise the deepest philosophical concepts through gestures, movements and the art of suggestion. Immediate collective transcendence is possible only through dance when the dancer disappears and melts away in the dance and when the audience is transported to the realm of 'rasa srishti', the pure aesthetic delight. Any attempt to transcribe and describe dance through words is bound to remain incomplete as dance is a visual art. In India it has sat atop a pyramid of various art forms which have had an oral and written history. As dance in India freely uses literary and poetic works taken from all vernacular languages, its repertory is rich beyond imagination. Vocal and instrumental music provides a constant accompaniment to translate ideas contained in these literary texts. Profusion of intricately carved sculptures on temple-walls have kept the forms alive even through dark periods of unsympathetic foreign rule. Dance has inspired a wealth of stone, metal and wood carvings, frescoes, murals and miniature paintings as well as textiles reflecting a panorama of dance movements. Special ornaments in gold, ruby, emerald, diamond or silver used by dancers have had a tradition of being crafted by hand. The art of decorating hair with different kinds of arrangements of flowers and fragrant leaves according to seasonal availability and suitability was specially taught as an additional accomplishment of a dancer. This book points at many such ideas and urges the reader to take a plunge in the ocean of ambrosial knowledge, which is called 'natya vidya'.

Asian Dance, Second Edition introduces readers to the rich variety of dance traditions of India, Thailand, Java, Bali, China, and Japan. From the profound impact Hindu deities had on dance in India and later in Southeast Asia thousands of years ago to the 20th-century development of Butoh in Japan, dance has been a means for people to express themselves religiously, culturally, and socially in celebration. In learning about the varied Asian dances across the world's largest continent, readers will discover how the art form is an essential way for Asians to express themselves and their history.