Tribute To Dance On World Dance Day -Dance- Evolution To Innovation - 29 April 2015 Poem by Umasree Raghunath

29 April 2015

Dance- Evolution to Innovation



Dances that evolved to express joy
Folk and tribal dances on every occasion
Celebrating the arrival of seasons
Birth of a child, wedding and festivals
Even dances around the final good byes
Dances that are simple, steps and movement
Dance bursting with verve and vitality
Performances that make stories marvelous
Songs that go along with the dance moves
Accompanied by artists on the instruments
Various dances with specific costumes
Flamboyant and extensive dance jewelry
From just the evolution of joyful dancing
To innovating ways of telling stories
Of the improving mankind and tales
Skills and imaginations influences
The dancers and their dance performances
Started with the dancing statues of Mohenjadaro
And Devadasis in our Kind and queens courts
Bharatnatyam that started as dasi attam
And Kuchipudi as a Brahmin story telling
Half Aryan and Half Dravidian Kathakali
Katha meaning story telling with Kathak
Gandharvas and Goddess of Dawn by Manipuri
Temples and Religion depicted in Odissi
Indian fusion with broader acceptance
Respect for cultural diversity and collaboration
Exploring expressive potential and traditions
Contemporary styles with modern dance
Inspired and equally acquired with meaning
Express new forms, with social systems
Culture, needs, exclusivity and audience
Dance will continue growing in dimensions
Of beauty, form and truth in expressions
Dancers will continue to give more and more
To the sentiments of love and the art
Dancers both women and men will make
The art live on for years and years to come!



Bardo chham of Arunachal Pradesh
Depicts the victory of good over evil
Enmasked in different animal forms
Accompanied by drum and crymbals
Dance to act in fight the evil forces
Lovely tribal dances of Assam
Enrich the culture and Bihu dance
Brisk dance steps and hand movements
Drums, horn and Bamboo instruments
Used along with colorful clothes to glance
Jumur Nach of the tea garden workers
Accuracy of the foot work and clasping waists
Bagurumba dance with slow steps
And outstreached hands in Bodo attires
Dance for making offering to dieties
Ali ai ligang festival of mishing community
Jharkhand Munda dance for fortune and good luck
Starting with planting trees and beating drums
Gaining momemntum and uproarious tumult
Chattisgarh folk dance Panthi with religious
Overtones, dance evolving with pattens
Songs eulogizing their spiritual head
Conveying the spirit of renunciation
Acrobatics and forms of human pyramids
Carried away in the sheer spiritual devotion
Raut Nacha awakening of Gods brief rest
Of Lord Krishna’s raas leelas with gopikas
Gaur Maria Dance invocation for marriages
Joyous celebration of tribes of chattisgarh
Goan Tarangamel is full of energy and youth
Waving flags, steamers of the colorful group
Rainbow costumes of the dances is visual treat
Folk dances of Dashavatara, Dekhni and Dhalo
Dhangar, Fugdi, Ghodemodni, Divlyan Nach
Gujarat’s Garba involves circular patterns of moves
Rhythmic clapping performed during Navratri
Lights shinning in the inner sanctum of temples
Padar peformers simulate roving mariners
And mvoements of undulating sea waves
Lively folk dances of the adivasis and tribes
Raas dance with sticks or dandiyas
Garba-Raas is the fight of good over evil
Innovation spring along this dance forms
Tippani dance of women with rods
Beating up the floor of the iron or wood
Making dance an interesting work