Structure Structure Structure - Pt. Uno

My goodness, I'm leaving tomorrow. It's a crazy race of suitcases and shopping and packing that's turned my room into a hazardous waste zone. I'm writing this post in on a pile of clothes on my bed before I stuff everything into suitcases. Here's my savior as of now for this project:

Laghu Bharatham: Hand Book on Bharatha Natyam. What more could I need? Even better, I got an Abhinaya flow chart out of it. I adore flow charts let me just say, they just simplify everything for you! It helps me put my prior knowledge into words to further both my own understanding, and explain concepts better to my readers. 

So the point of this post is to explain that while Abhinaya might seem free flowing and expressive, it's based on a servers of rigid structures. I mentioned the term Aangika Abhinaya a while back - expression through body and limb movements. This is split into anga (major limbs) and pratyanga (minor limbs - neck, eyes, eyebrows, etc.). To give you an idea of just how structured this gets (according to the Abhinaya Darpana, the most referenced text for Bharatanatyam dancers):

• The nine head movements are shiro bhedha.
• The eight eye movements are netra bhedha.
• The four neck movements are greeva bhedha.

I'm not even going to suggest going into the specifics, for the sake of my sanity and yours. Next time (FROM LONDON OMG) I'll pick up with mudras. Whoa. What are those? Well, you'll just have to read next time! Adieu!

~Prithvi