July 17th, 2008 arts
The Indians have created various dance forms to celebrate occasions, express joy and most importantly as a means of worshiping their gods and goddesses. The famous Ajanta and Ellora caves and many other monuments reflect this culture through the sculptures inscribed in the walls. God Nataraja is the god of dance whose sculptures depicts him dancing and getting triumph over the evil. There is a huge variety of different dance forms in India based on geographic location and socio-economical condition of carious states and regions.
Bharata Natyam flourished in the royal courts and temples of ancient India. Finally in the 19th century it was codified and certified as performing arts. The Tanjore Quartet made a great contribution to this dance form by making great musical compositions. Bharata Natyam was also practiced by Devadasi who were women who dedicated their life to the temple and used to dance to please god and goddesses as part of religious rituals. Bharata Natyam gives a chance for both the male and female to bring out their talents as dancers. As time passed by people began recognizing the talent and presenting it on a bigger platform. Rukmini Devi Arundale and E Krishna Iyer were the prominent figures who were responsible in the upbringing of this classical art. Many universities award degree in graduation and post graduation in Bharata Natyam. The field is very elaborate because of the wide extent of movement, postures, facial expressions and stylized mime.
Kathak is the form of dance nurtured by the nomads of the northern India. The word Kathak means story teller as its performer depicts the storyline with the help of facial expressions and hand gestures. Dancers wear bells or Ghungru on their feet and with their footwork used to synchronize with the accompanying Indian classical instruments such as Pakhawaj or Tabla at a lightning speed. The shows were hosted in temple and village squares. The themes of these dances were stories from moral and mythological epics. Song and instrumental music added to the realistic illusion of the story. During the Mogul era this form of art gained recognition and dancers were encouraged to perform in royal palaces. To please the art loving rulers more effort was put in to refine the art and more dramatic aspects and rhythms were added. Banaras, Jaipur and Luckhnow are the breeding grounds of this refined art.
Kuchipudi nourished in a village Kuchelapuram of the state of Andhra Pradesh which is located in the South. This dance form is famous for its fast footwork and sculpturesque body gyrations. It is one kind of dance form where the dancer speaks some dialogues and at other times uses facial expressions and hand gestures.
Being honored by UNESCO as the Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity Koodiyattam is the oldest form of Indian Classical dance. It is the traditional dance of the Sanskrit theater of Kerala. The prominent Sanskrit dramatists who dedicated their life to this art form are Bhasa, Kalidaas, Harsha,and Saktibhadra. The attire of the artist is really attractive and outstanding. They stick on artificial beard and huge hips and the makeup, too, which is very loud and the whole face is painted.
The most graceful dance form of India is Manipuri. It flourished in the northeastern state of India, Manipur which means a jewel of the land. According to folklore the gods emptied a lake to make a place to dance and due to this Manipuri dance has become an integral part of the day to day life as well as important occasions like birthdays, wedding, and holy ceremonies. The dancers wear long flared skirts with beautiful embellishments and the main lead who enacts the role of God Krishna wears tall peacock crown playing a flute to whose tune the beautiful girls dance gracefully. Another version of this art form involves Pung Cholam or drum dance, where dancers dance to the tune of drums or pung with fast gyrations taking thrilling leaps.
Odissi originated in Orissa, a state geographically located in the middle of India. The two important facets of this dance form are Abhinaya, a stylized mime involving facial expressions and hand gestures and the other is Nritta or non-representational dance, where ornamental patters are depicted using the body movements.
India is a rich country in heritage and culture. Other than the above mentioned variety of theater arts, the others are Chhau, Kathakali, Mohiniattam, and Satriya. Along with these dance forms instruments such as Flute, Pakhawaj, Sitar, Santoor, Sarangi, Sarod, Shehnai, Tabla, and Vina have been deployed to reach great heights of perfection.
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July 13th, 2008 arts
The history of theatre arts can be dated back to as early as the period of ancient Greek. Since then the various eras witnessed changes in the types of theatre stages, which affected the actors and also gave rise to different forms of acting.
In ancient Greece, plays were staged to mark a religious occasion in theatres where only prestigious men were allowed as at that time women and slaves were looked down upon in the society. Theatres popularly known as amphitheatres housed a large round stage which was encircled three-fourth by audience. This is how a stage would be set in the Greek Era. Amphitheatre could accommodate an audience of 25,000 at a time which made it very difficult to see whats going on for the audience at the back. To overcome this obstruction the actors would be loud with grandiose voice and enormous gestures and to be more noticeable wore mask and symbolical attires. High pitched chorus was used to as a means of cautioning of an upcoming event or to advice co-actors. To improve the visibility and to give a deception of reality to the plays they were held in daylight and a real landscape acted as the background of the play.
In the medieval era facilities were more commonly available to many of the inhabitants of the community. Theatres too were no longer reserved for the rich. Plays were held on wagons better known as pageants. The wagon would be dragged into the marketplace where the play was decided to be held. Spectators would surround the stage from all sides and would watch the play. The themes of most of the plays at that time were the daily happenings and day to day experiences depicted as an ironic comedy or as a genuine mime depending on the taste of the audience. This created an interaction between the audience and the actors with the audience expressing their views on the theme.
During the Renaissance Period theatre performance took the form of professional performance more than an artistic one. The blueblood of England started investing into performing groups and theatres with an apron stage. The apron stage had a rectangular platform with nearly an audience of 2,000 surrounding the three sides of it and was in close proximity with the actors performing on stage. With the wealthy aristocrats funding the plays the costumes were designed with more details and were elegant. Plays were enacted at daytime which made the creation of illusion of nighttime difficult which was overcome by dispatching the information as a part of an actors dialogue which is termed as word scenery. Denizens from all sects of the society attended these plays so an effort was made to please a large array of spectators by taking different storylines into consideration.
The period around the seventeenth and eighteenth century was known as the Restoration period. The theatres around this time were smaller than those of the Renaissance period and held up to 500 spectators at a time. This period gave an end to daylight lit auditoriums replacing them with closed rooms lit completely with man-made light. Stages were bounded with decorated frames but with no curtains like the modern times. Although the audiences werent in close vicinity of the stage, a small stage protruded into the auditorium so as to increase the interaction between the audience and the actors. Lack of curtain hindered the privacy of changing of scenes which affected the realistic illusion. Performances by the restoration period were character driven with more emphasis on the perfectionism, social issues, and scenery.
The stage in the later centuries evolved into what is known as the proscenium stage or picture frame stage. Its designed and named after the technique of how one visualizes a picture. There is a defined separation between the spectators and the actors with the introduction of ramp. Curtains added to this and the same time gave privacy to change scenes thus creating a realistic and elaborated picturization. The auditorium is darkened during the performance there by increasing the concentration of the audience. Modern technologies and aids have made illustration more interesting and realistic and made the art even more interesting and popular.
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July 10th, 2008 arts
The period around 600 BC – 200 BC was known as the Golden age of Greek Theater arts. Athens was the focal point for the flourishing arts. The political and military epicenter gave birth to great emperors, soldiers, philosophers, poets, writers and actors.
Annually plays were staged at Theater of Dionysia. Songs were sung at first in praise of God of wine and fertility, Dionysus. Out of them Aristotles poetry was outstanding. Its major element was tragedy which was the inspiration behind the tragic stories. Another poet Arion developed chorus singing which was known as Dithyramb. Later on chorus became an integral part of Greek Theater alongside actors, commentators and narrators who were also a part of the chorus team. In some plays chorus acted as a separately different character. They all synchronized with each other to project the image of a single entity rather than a group. In the beginning chorus comprised of twelve singing and dancing participants known as Choreutai. Later the number was increased to fifteen and two groups of seven, known as Hemichoria, were made with a lead singer known as Koryphaios.
Plays were written by Thespis in the beginning with one actor who enacted different characters by wearing different masks. He interacted with the chorus which narrated some parts of the story and sang when required. His plays themes were tragedy and God Dionysus. Aeschylus introduced a second actor, followed by Sophocles, who introduced a third actor. This increased the complexity of the story and opened the horizons as other Greek mythological characters were being considered. And this was when the leader of the chorus was also introduced. He was responsible to interact with the actors on stage and with the audience too, for their opinion and for the summarization. Sometimes the interaction was in the form of a song and at other times he spoke directly. The rest of the chorus sang along in the background and illustrated on the main theme.
And thus two masks became the symbol of Greek Theater or Theatron. One had a smile and gleeful expression representing the comic aspect of the play and the other mask bore a sad expression which represented the tragic aspect of the play. By 500s BC, theaters were more dignified and became the pride of Athenian culture. The first renowned theater was the Theater of Dionysus. Annual competitions were held where three tragic plays were performed and the best play was rewarded. Competition between comedy plays started in 430s BC.
In the fourth century BC, King Alexander attacked Athens which led to the Peloponnesian War. It was then when the power of Athens began to deteriorate. In spite of the threat to the theatrical traditions of Greek, it still survived and passed onto the Hellenistic period. It was in this period when Comedy Theater came to its full form which reflected the lives of common man. The storyline of the plays was never mixed, i.e. comedy was never intermingled with tragedy and vice-versa. Menander was the writer who attained fame during this period.
The three main elements of theater became Orchestra, Skene and Audience. The platform on which artists performed and chorus performed was known as orchestra or the dancing place. At other times it was used to conduct religious rites. Skene was a huge rectangular building behind the orchestra. Originally it was a simple hut or tent used as a backstage. Actors changed their costumes here and it was used for religious purposes also. But later it took the form of a firm stone structure with two to three doors which opened into the orchestra. Paintings were done on this structure which was used as the background of the play and thats how the term Skene came into existence. Later on another structure named as Proskene was also erected in front of the Skene which was exclusively meant for the performance of the actors. The audience sat in round ascending stair-case form of seating. Therefore the shape of the mountain into which the whole structure is being sculptured is important.
The theater arts that emerged during that era are mirrored in the plays of today all over the world. Out of all the plays written at that time plays of tragedians like Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles and plays of comedian Aristophanes became famous in the golden history of Greek arts. Their work was taken one step further by Plautus and Terence.
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July 6th, 2008 arts
The English Theaters that existed between the Reformation and their shutdown in 1642 is known as the English Renaissance Theater or Early Modern English Theater. In this era Elizabethan Theater under rule of Queen Elizabeth from 1558 – 1603, Jacobean theater, under rule of King James I from 1603-1625, and Caroline theater, under the rule of King Charles I from 1625 till the shutdown in 1642, were operational. Sometimes the Renaissance Theaters are used with reference to Elizabethan Theater due to the reforms brought up by the theater during that period. Great Playwrights like William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe were a part of this era.
The Renaissance Theaters were inspired by the medieval theaters. Its religious traditions, biblical stories, morality and mystery play have the essence of comedy and tragedy from the Greek theater. Theater actors from noble families were in practice before the reign of Elizabeth I, so in the Elizabethan theater there were professional performers acting on stage. They were later replaced by young aspiring actors who were more involved in morality and mystery kind of plays. To get them back, a ruling was announced in 1572 to close all theaters which lacked formal patronage. The noble professionals came back into act and flourished during that era. But the poor performers opened new theaters in the suburbs. They got permission by saying that they were rehearsing for the plays that were being performed in front of the queen. But these theaters were the actual income provider for the artists rather than the noble theaters.
The plays that were being played at first were same in the royal theaters and the public theaters. But later on the royal theaters developed a taste for plays written on the upper class and the royal family. The public theaters were open to new ideas and stories revolved around many subjects. But during Caroline Theater era plays had storyline of the yester years; nothing new was created at that time. Plays were written on history such as on lives of kings like Henry V, Richard III, Edward I and Edward III. Tragic plays like The Jew of Malta and Dr. Faustus were very famous with the crowd.
It was a trend to not to repeat the story for two continuous shows. On very rare occasion a play was staged twice in a week. Only exception was Thomas Middletons A Game at Chess which was performed nine times continuously. This was a challenge for the actors which always kept them on their toes. The plays written by the writers once being sold to the company remained the property of the company. They couldnt even interfere with the casting, revisions or publications. Women werent a part of theater at that time. They couldnt write plays and nor could they act. The female character was played by adolescent boys wearing feminine garment and makeup.
The theaters were made out of timber and plaster with thatched roofs. As they were more prone to catching fire these structures were later replaced with a brick structure with tiled roofs. Theaters were three storied building with open air stage in the middle. The stage was surrounded from three sides by seating arrangement on the three stories; it was either elliptical or square. There were doors at the back of the stage that were used by the performers. The third level behind the stage was used as a balcony to interact with the audience. Some of the renowned theaters having such structures were Curtain Theater, The Globe, The Fortune, The Rose, The Swan and The Red Bull. Later on theaters of relatively small size with indoor stage started getting popular for privacy sake. It started with the Blackfriars Theater. Other theaters that followed the path were Whitefriars, Cockpit and Salisbury Court Theater.
The Puritan movement was the cause of closure of theaters in 1642. According to the Puritans the theaters were staging indecent stuff like men dressing up as female and also aroused opposing political thoughts. Most of the theaters were located in places where brothels dwelled. So at the beginning of the English Civil War all the theaters were closed.
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June 26th, 2008 arts
Puppet Art is popular in many countries of Asia. Indonesian Puppet shadow play was known as Wayang Kulit which originated from Bali and Java. The term Wayang Kulit has been derived from the words Warang meaning ghost or shadow and Kulit meaning leather and when put together meant shadow from leather. They used two-dimensional figures, flat and round and were made with the hide of a buffalo. The sticks attached to these figures were planted in the banana stems which were placed beneath a cloth screen onto which the shadow of the puppet was casted. The right side of the stage was occupied by the good characters; where as the left side was occupied by the wrong doers. They are maneuvered by puppeteers know as Dalang. Puppet art was very exhausting at that time, the show used to go on for nine hours in the night with the puppeteer sitting cross-legged without a wink. He was even expected to play Rebab, the two-stringed violin, with one hand and handle the Chempala or the strings of the puppet with another hand. The themes of these shows were the Javanese versions of the two hundred stories from Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata which are referred to as Rama cycle and Pandawa cycle respectively. The puppet show involving three-dimensional puppets were known as Wayang Golek.
Shadow puppetry took its full form in Tang Dynasty. That era was known as The Age of 1000 Entertainments. The two different kinds of puppetry are Cantonese and Pekingese. They differ in the production of the puppets and the way by which these puppets are being positioned with the help of rods, though the theme is same in both the techniques, that is, they revolve around stories with elements of adventurous fiction. Thick leather was used in the manufacturing of Cantonese puppets, so as to create a good shadow. The colors were used to represent different characters. A brave man had a red facial color where as an honest character had a black face. The rod was attached perpendicularly to the head of the puppet to make them less visible during the shadow performance. The puppets were bigger than Pekingese puppets. On the other hand the Pekingese puppets were more petite and were made out of thin and translucent leather which made them more fragile. They were equally good for the shadow performance as they were colored very vividly. Thin rods were attached to the neck of the figure and werent visible during the performance. The Chinese puppeteers had a superstition that the puppets will come to life at night if the head was kept intact with the body. So the head was separated from the body and the body was stored in a box. With respect to time, shadow puppetry started flourishing and reached its prime in the eleventh century.
Puppetry blossomed in the Indian villages and became an integral part of the folk culture. The puppets of India can be broadly classified as rod, thread, shadow and glove puppets which are made out of material like leather, wood, wool or cloth. Usually these puppets have a small body with an outstanding head with large eyes to add charm and personality. The villain has characteristic dark goggle eyes; the hero of the story has light eyes. Hands are made out of cloth bags stuffed with hands and most of the puppets have no legs which are substituted by a long robe. Exceptions are the ones who have to ride horses. The male puppets are made to wear turbans and chase the bad guy, fight and even fall dead and the female puppets have braided ponytails and hold their skirts in their hand while dancing. The head-puppeteer moves the puppets with the help of strings or rods and usually provides the voice and the female voices and songs are provided by his wife and kids. Denizens of the states Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,
Kerala, Orissa and Rajasthan are well known to have mastered the art of puppetry. The drawback of puppetry is that it lacks facial expression. Exaggeration and distortion should be provided to achieve the best results. But the humor provided is incomparable which make this irreplaceable art unique in itself.
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