We kicked off our Winter Semester in style on Sunday, attending a family program at the children's museum on
Kathak Dance, which is a form of classical Indian Dance. The presenter was an absolutely amazing dancer, and had a nice way with the kids. She performed a couple of traditional dances for us, taught us all some common
Kathak arm movements, then taught the kids shorter versions of the dances she performed.
I knew the program would be a huge hit with J, but was surprised by how interested Zoo Boy was. He didn't want to get up and dance, but he did
participate in the hand motions from his seat, listened attentively, and even asked the presenter a question (he wanted to know if she lived in India). This morning when I googled up "
Kathak" to figure out how to spell it correctly, he heard me mention the word to The Map Man, and sprung out of bed to check out the website, where the women were dressed just like our presenter was.
There's our J, little dancer that he is, in the green shirt, just to the right of the presenter. You know, the one that's not a girl in a brownie uniform! He had a great time learning and performing the dances. He particularly liked a dramatic dance that had lots of facial expressions that told the folk story of "The Butter
Thief".
Those bells on the
presenter's feet are made of copper and zinc and each set weights 2 1/2 pounds. I can't remember how many bells make up each set, but I assure you, it was a LOT of little
jinglers! The dancers make the bells sound differently by striking the ground with their feet in several different ways -- flat-footed, toe, heel (a couple different ways of striking with the heel), the side of the foot. There's also a slide that she showed us (sort of dragging her foot across the ground to vibrate the bells). Each movement causes the bells to make a different sound. Combining series of the movements (think like a very jingly tap dancer!) produces an amazing range of sounds and rhythms.
Between and after the performances, she answered a lot of questions from the audience. She began dancing when she was 5 yrs old, and most of the bones in her feet are dislocated because of it (something none of us were surprised at, given the force with which she strikes the ground with them). However, and I thought this was a very interesting cultural difference between Western cultures and Indian, classical dancers in India do not start their careers until they are in at least their mid-30s (while dancers here in the US are pretty much done with their
competitive careers by then). She explained that in India, life experience is valued most, and they feel that an artist needs to experience a certain amount of Depth (sorrow) and Height (joy) in their lives in order to perform properly. Interesting, eh?
We kicked off our Winter Semester in style on Sunday, attending a family program at the children's museum on Kathak Dance, which is a form of classical Indian Dance. The presenter was an absolutely amazing dancer, and had a nice way with the kids. She performed a couple of traditional dances for us, taught us all some common Kathak arm movements, then taught the kids shorter versions of the dances she performed.
I knew the program would be a huge hit with J, but was surprised by how interested Zoo Boy was. He didn't want to get up and dance, but he did participate in the hand motions from his seat, listened attentively, and even asked the presenter a question (he wanted to know if she lived in India). This morning when I googled up "Kathak" to figure out how to spell it correctly, he heard me mention the word to The Map Man, and sprung out of bed to check out the website, where the women were dressed just like our presenter was.
There's our J, little dancer that he is, in the green shirt, just to the right of the presenter. You know, the one that's not a girl in a brownie uniform! He had a great time learning and performing the dances. He particularly liked a dramatic dance that had lots of facial expressions that told the folk story of "The Butter Thief".
Those bells on the presenter's feet are made of copper and zinc and each set weights 2 1/2 pounds. I can't remember how many bells make up each set, but I assure you, it was a LOT of little jinglers! The dancers make the bells sound differently by striking the ground with their feet in several different ways -- flat-footed, toe, heel (a couple different ways of striking with the heel), the side of the foot. There's also a slide that she showed us (sort of dragging her foot across the ground to vibrate the bells). Each movement causes the bells to make a different sound. Combining series of the movements (think like a very jingly tap dancer!) produces an amazing range of sounds and rhythms.
Between and after the performances, she answered a lot of questions from the audience. She began dancing when she was 5 yrs old, and most of the bones in her feet are dislocated because of it (something none of us were surprised at, given the force with which she strikes the ground with them). However, and I thought this was a very interesting cultural difference between Western cultures and Indian, classical dancers in India do not start their careers until they are in at least their mid-30s (while dancers here in the US are pretty much done with their competitive careers by then). She explained that in India, life experience is valued most, and they feel that an artist needs to experience a certain amount of Depth (sorrow) and Height (joy) in their lives in order to perform properly. Interesting, eh?
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