Dancing Valour at Arts in Parliament

There was a huge amount going on in this piece; Rasa Abhinaya which made it a pleasure to watch but rather more challenging to photograph. Danced at the Akademi Community Performance at Westminster Hall I would have liked to have shot the same performance two or three times to make sure that each emotion was properly recorded.

I made the decision to stand behind the seated audience at the centre of the stage for the whole of this performance, as taking shots at an angle to the stage would have missed that part of the set that made this special – as you can see from my previous posts. The disadvantage was that from this place it was impossible to capture the entire troupe in one image. I’ve selected this image because in it a dancer clearly shows one of the emotions covered by the Shloka on which it is based.

Rasa Abhinaya is the expression of Rasa in classical Indian dance, where a Rasa is an expression of emotion inspired by a performer. The Natya Shastra (Nāṭyaśāstra) identifies 8 different sentiments which arise in the experience of life and in performance. This piece was based on Shloka by Shankar Acharya. It exemplifies; shringara (love), bibhatsa (disgust), raudra (anger), adhbhutam (wonder), bhayanakam (fear), haasyam (mirth) veeram (valour) and karuna (Compassion).

Choreogrpaher: Pushkala Gopal
Dance Style: Bharatanatyam
Composer: Traditional

Previous posts on this event:
Tarana