Analyzing the Frequency of Leg Movements and Hand Gestures in Bharatanatyam Adavus
ABSTRACT
This study researched Bharatanatyam, a classical south Indian dance form. In this study, I calculated the frequency of each distinct leg movement and hand gesture (mudra) done in Bharatanatyam adavus, or basic steps of Bharatanatyam. I then ranked each leg movement and mudra to find the most common ones used in Bharatanatyam adavus. I found that the most frequent leg movements were “aramandi stamp”, “prenkhana stamp”, “jump on toes”, and “R & L heel stamp”. The most frequent mudras were alapadma, katakamukha, pathaka, and tripathaka.
Keywords: Bharatanatyam, Adavu, Leg Movement, Mudra, Frequency
INTRODUCTION
Background Information
For thousands of years, Bharatanatyam has been a popular classical Indian dance form. Originating from the ancient temples of Tamil Nadu, Bharatanatyam has spread in popularity since its birth, and it is now being practiced by Indian communities around the world. In modern times, Bharatanatyam not only serves as entertainment, but also plays an integral role in bringing communities together and giving Bharatanatyam students a chance to connect back to their roots. Because a part of Bharatanatyam includes storytelling through certain movements, hand gestures, and facial expressions, this dance form also gives dancers the opportunity to learn about ancient stories, myths, and legends from the Hindu religion, thus allowing Bharatanatyam students to be more aware of their culture and heritage.
ADAVUS
Bharatanatyam is comprised of three main components: natya, nrittya, and nritta. Natya refers to facial expressions; nrittya refers to hand gestures, eye movements, neck movements, etc, which are used in combination to tell a story. The most important component of Bharatanatyam is nritta, which are sequences of dance steps that are not meant to convey any story or emotion. These dance steps are known as adavus and are the basic building blocks of Bharatanatyam. Each Bharatanatyam dancer starts their dance education by mastering the adavus, before moving onto learning full dance numbers. As stated by popular online Bharatanatyam dance teacher Anjali Nandan on her Bharatanatyam website, an adavu is a combination of sthanakam, mandalam, chari, and nritta hastas (onlinebharatanatyam.com). Stanakam refers to the position of the legs, mandalam refers to the position of standing, chari are walking movements, and nritta hastas are hand gestures. A combination of these four components yields an adavu. There are 10 basic adavu groups, and there are several variations of steps within each group. The 10 adavus include Tatta adavu, Natta adavu, Visharu adavu, Tattimitti adavu, Tirumanam adavu, Murka adavu, Jati adavu, Kuditamitta adavu, Mandi adavu, and Sarikal adavu.
Below I have posted video links for the first variation of each adavu for reference.
Tatta: https://bit.ly/2ZvKa65
Natta: https://bit.ly/32kTWKd
Visharu: https://bit.ly/2ZvdUA3
Tattimitti: https://bit.ly/3j6wRkm
Tirumanam: https://bit.ly/3j8Cu1G
Murka: https://bit.ly/3fyVGmO
Jati: https://bit.ly/38ZXjaJ
Kuditamitta: https://bit.ly/3eyH5Xs
Mandi: https://bit.ly/3fzCoh9
Sarikal: https://bit.ly/2DCVTY7
Research Question
The purpose of my study was to determine which movements are best representative of Bharatanatyam. Thus, I intended to test the research question, “What are the most common leg movements, hand movements, and mudras (hand gestures, see figures 1 and 2) of Bharatanatyam dance?” However, throughout the process of collecting and logging data, I quickly realized that the hand movements in Bharatanatyam adavus were far too varied to be able to come to a conclusion. This was because in most instances, the right and left hands were doing different movements at once, which created too many combinations of hand movements. The leg movements, on the other hand, had a limited number of positions and combinations of movements from the right and left leg, which made collecting data feasible. Because of this realization, I modified my research question to “What are the most common leg movements and mudras of Bharatanatyam dance?”
METHODOLOGY
Source of Data
In order to collect data, I planned to go through each adavu variation and document each leg movement (repetitions included) and repeat the same process for mudras. Although I knew each adavu from memory, I wanted to collect the data from a more concrete, written out, established area: thus, I decided to utilize the popular online Bharatanatyam website (https://onlinebharatanatyam.com/) created by Anjali Nandan, who is a “Nritya Visharad” in Bharatanatyam. Being a “Nritya Visharad” is equivalent to having a masters degree in Bharatanatyam. On her website, Nandan includes videos and explanations of each adavu variation, and I decided to utilize these videos for data collection. Because each teacher has slight differences in adavu variations, I decided to use Nandan’s videos in order to have a consistent reference point for all the adavus.
Collection of Data
In order to collect my data, I went through each adavu variation in each adavu group (see table 1), and documented each leg movement (in order) and mudra done in the adavu in a spreadsheet (Appendix A, B). Each adavu variation has two sides, meaning that you do a sequence of steps starting with the right side, and you repeat the steps starting with the left side. In order to reduce repetition, I collected data only for the right side of each adavu variation, as the leg movements for the left side are symmetric to the right side. This means that simple math can be done to find the leg movement counts for the whole step, using the right side leg movement counts. Additionally, collecting which mudras are used in just the right side of each adavu variation does not change if I were to collect which mudras are used in the whole adavu. After I had collected data on which leg movements and mudras are used in each adavu variation, I then made a table (table 2) of the 31 distinct leg movements and how many times each one was performed in total, including both sides of each adavu variation. I also included the calculation for the total count of each leg movement for both sides of the adavu. I then ranked each leg movement based on its count in decreasing order. Using the same process, I made a similar table (table 3) on the mudras used in each adavu variation.
DATA
The data that I have collected is condensed into the following tables.
FINDINGS
After collecting and examining my data, I found that the most frequent leg movements done in Bharatanatyam adavus were an “aramandi stamp” (see figure 2 for aramandi position), “prenkhana stamp” (see figure 3 for prenkhana position), “jump on toes” (see figure 4), and “R & L heel stamp”. I also found that the most common mudras in Bharatanatyam adavus in order of frequency are alapadma (see figure 5), katakamukha (see figure 6), tripathaka (see figure 7), and pathaka (see figure 8). See figures 9 and 10 for bar graphs of leg movement and mudra frequency in Bharatanatyam adavus. See figures 11 and 12 for pie charts of leg movement and mudra frequency in Bharatanatyam adavus.
ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION
Although I have been learning Bharatanatyam for the past 13 years and am very familiar with all the adavu variations, it was very interesting to see how each adavu breaks down and to find patterns of leg movements between each adavu group. Although I knew these patterns subconsciously, it was more concrete and easier to see when each leg movement was carefully logged and written out in a spreadsheet. Even with the mudras, I was surprised to see that although there are 51 mudras total in Bharatanatyam, only 4 are commonly used in adavus.
Leg Movement Frequency Univariate Analysis
The mode (2) is less than the median (13), which is less than the mean (30.83). Thus, the data is clearly skewed to the left. The mean is far from the median (a 17.83 difference), showing that the data varies significantly. Furthermore, the standard deviation is approximately 72.09, again showing that the data varies significantly.
The five-number summary is {1, 3, 13, 27, 404}. This means that the interquartile range (IQR) is 24 The range (max (404) — min (1)) is 403. Both the IQR and the range are measures of spread and are relatively large. This means, in context, that the number of times each leg movement occurred throughout the 10 adavu groups varied significantly. The first quartile is 3, this means in context that 25% of leg movements only occur 3 times or less throughout the 10 adavu groups. The third quartile is 27, so 25% of leg movements occur 27 times or more throughout the 10 adavu groups.
One important thing to note is that a large percentage (43.7%) of leg movements comes from the “aramandi stamp”. The total number of aramandi stamps is 404, far above the median of 13. While this may seem surprising to someone without knowledge of Bharatantayam, this extreme outlier of aramandi stamps is understandable, considering that it is the most basic and fundamental step of Bharatanatyam, and it is always the first step taught to any Bharatanatyam dancer. In fact, the entire first adavu group (tatta adavu), which has 6 variations, consists only of this step, therefore contributing significantly to the large number of occurrences of this leg movement.
The second most frequent leg movement is the “jump on toes” movement, and it is also an outlier in the mathematical step. The large number of occurrences of this leg movement (94) is a little more surprising, as it is not considered a fundamental step, and it only makes an appearance at specific times later on in the adavu groups. But by looking at the data, the reason this leg movement is the second most frequent leg movement becomes more understandable. The “jump on toes” movement mostly occurs in the fourth group (tattimitti) and the eighth group (kuditamitta), where it is one of the base leg movements that the step is built around.
Mudra Frequency Univariate Analysis
The mode (2) is less than the median (4.5), which is less than the mean (14). Thus, the data is clearly skewed to the left, like the leg movement data as well. The mean is far from the median (a 9.5 difference), showing that the data varies significantly. Furthermore, the standard deviation is approximately 14.59, again showing that the data varies significantly.
The five-number summary is {1, 2, 4.5, 32, 38}. This means that the interquartile range (IQR) is 30 The range (max (38) — min (1)) is 37. Both the IQR and the range are measures of spread and are relatively large. This means, in context, that the number of times each mudra occurred throughout the 10 adavu groups varied significantly. The first quartile is 2, this means in context that 25% of mudras only occur 2 times or less throughout the 10 adavu groups. The third quartile is 32, so 25% of leg movements occur 32 times or more throughout the 10 adavu groups.
It is important to note the large percentages of alapadma (27.1%), katakamukha (24.3%), and pathaka (22.9%) in Bharatanatyam adavus. As a Bharatanatyam dancer, this is expected, as these three mudras are general mudras that are used in almost all of the fundamental steps. Other mudras usually have specific meanings and are only used during storytelling to convey that specific meaning. For example, simhamukha is only typically used to convey a cow and mayura is typically only used to convey a feather.
Further Implications
I believe further research can be done to ascertain which muscle strains or injuries are more likely to occur as a result of the common or uncommon movements. For example, the most common leg movement by far is the aramandi stamp. Because this step requires the extensive use of leg muscles, and causes pressure on the knees, it could be the reason why knee injuries are the most common type of injury in Bharatanatyam dancers (Prakash 10). Prakash goes further to compare the “aramandi” position in Bharatanatyam with the first position (demi plié) in Ballet dancing. Because these two positions are the same, thus engaging the same muscles, Prakash corroborates the claim that knee injuries are the most common in both forms of dance. Prakash also states that “Bharatanatyam has also been shown to cause foot, ankle, and back pain”. Thus, studies can be done to determine how these common leg movements could cause or be related to these common leg movements. Additionally, it is important to note that research can be done not only to determine which common leg movements can cause certain muscle strains, but which uncommon leg movements in Bharatanatyam can be done more frequently to prevent certain muscle strains.
Works Cited
Anjali. “More about Adavus.” Online Bharatanatyam, 4 Dec. 2012, onlinebharatanatyam.com/2007/07/21/more-about-adavus/.
Anjali. “The Basics Of Bharatanatyam (3N).” Online Bharatanatyam, 21 July 2007, onlinebharatanatyam.com/2007/07/21/the-basics-of-bharatanatyam-3n/.
“Bharatanatyam.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 June 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatanatyam#cite_note-58.
chitranair7. “Leg Postures in Bharatanatyam.” Nysa Dance Academy, 29 Oct. 2015, nysadancecom.wordpress.com/2015/09/26/leg-posture-aramandi-or-ardhamandala/.
“‘Cultural Translation’ of Bharata Natyam into ‘Contemporary Indian Dance’. Second‐Generation South Asian Americans and Cultural Politics in Diasporic Locations.” Taylor & Francis, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1474668042000275699.
“Hastas.” Mudras Dance School — Adavus, mudras123123123.weebly.com/hastas1.html.
Prakash, Roshni. Musculoskeletal Effects and Injury Risk in Collegiate Indian Classical and Ballet Dancers . Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b095/695556bfd6c7443ea0be519fab9572c623f0.pdf.
Srikanth, Varshaa. “Know The Single-Hand Bharatanatyam Mudras And Their Significance.” Sulekha, www.sulekha.com/blogs/know-the-single-hand-bharatanatyam-mudras-and-their-significance_630091.
Appendix A:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RnKeMSdJFVU7p4BGWGnASSD-CHh16IAWAa94tUEUlY0/edit?usp=sharing
Appendix B:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h8oVTZkEd4wtLq8EOxbDZ742BUFRRw6u_TdT5Cd_mQI/edit?usp=sharing
https://www.healthline.com/health/exercises-for-knee-pain#strengthening-exercises