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Shanti
05 October 2010, 06:25 PM
Blech. The article doesn't go into detail what exactly entails "Indian dancing with xtian faith mix", but the title is bad enough.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/essex/hi/people_and_places/religion_and_ethics/newsid_9055000/9055679.stm

~S

Sahasranama
06 October 2010, 03:50 AM
Have you ever seen white women try to do Indian Classical Dance? They look like lumberjacks.

TatTvamAsi
12 October 2010, 02:55 AM
Have you ever seen white women try to do Indian Classical Dance? They look like lumberjacks.

LOL!

This one ain't too bad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4DmP94-Epk

Eastern Mind
13 October 2010, 07:38 PM
Have you ever seen white women try to do Indian Classical Dance? They look like lumberjacks.

Vannakkam: Lumberjacks? Now that's a pretty rough generalisation. I've seen some decent dancers who've trained at Kalakshetra or some such place for years. Once I saw a standing ovation from primarily Tamil crowd for a light-skinned dancer here. The quality of the dance has to do with the quality of the dance, and that alone. I am no expert though so have to rely on my Indian friends to do the judging for me.

Aum Namasivaya

eriko
15 October 2010, 04:43 AM
LOL!

This one ain't too bad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4DmP94-Epk

That was actually very beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Sahasranama
15 October 2010, 05:45 AM
Yes, I am making a generalisation. But this is true for dance and music. I am not against westerners learning these arts, but they often lack grace when performing. I am no expert on (classical Indian) dance, but pay closer attention to the movements of the neck, the ankles and the wrists, look how much space the dancer gives to these points to direct the movement energetically. In Nikolina's video she gives a nice performance, but she is lacking a subtle feminine quality in her movement.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75o_GMm-uO0)

sunyata07
15 October 2010, 01:43 PM
Not that informative an article. It didn't mention much about combining Indian dancing with Christianity which sounds even more... wrong than the Christian yoga mix. Let's just pray it doesn't become the hip new way for evangelicals to get fit, folks.

But in all seriousness, it's surprising to find a devout Christian being so passionate about dancing. If you've ever met those fundamentalist God-fearing type Christians, most of them would tell you music and dance are temptations from the Devil to commit evil and sin (hah!).

I am only familiar mostly with kathak and bharatanatyam styles, but don't these dances also include complex mudras and hastas which are meant to symbolise various Devas? How would this translate into Christian Indian dancing? It makes no sense. It's also just something ironic to note in the article when you see the picture of the dancer lady with her hands in the gesture of Krishna playing the flute!

Also, I'm with EM on this one: skin colour really is no indicator on dancing ability. Most classically trained Indian dancers that are of Indian nationality have been dancing since birth. The resources they have in their homeland is far, far better than what you could ever hope to learn from some random classes given for a few weeks in the West. Most westerners now taking an interest in Indian dancing begin at a very late stage in their lives when essential components like flexibility and balance will probably not come so easily. Some of the greatest concert pianists are East Asian, despite there being that outdated belief that you needed the "big hands" that could stretch across octaves in white players. So please don't make such sweeping generalisations again.

Sahasranama
15 October 2010, 01:47 PM
Also, I'm with EM on this one: skin colour really is no indicator on dancing ability. Most classically trained Indian dancers that are of Indian nationality have been dancing since birth. The resources they have in their homeland is far, far better than what you could ever hope to learn from some random classes given for a few weeks in the West. Most westerners now taking an interest in Indian dancing begin at a very late stage in their lives when essential components like flexibility and balance will probably not come so easily. Some of the greatest concert pianists are East Asian, despite there being that outdated belief that you needed the "big hands" that could stretch across octaves in white players. So please don't make such sweeping generalisations again.That's absolutely true, I didn't mean it in a racist way. Indians were exposed to the culture since childhood, it's only natural that they are better at it.

Eastern Mind
15 October 2010, 06:20 PM
Vannakkam: The exception to this, of course, is within large enclaves of Indians in the west. I think, but may be wrong, the largest is the Sri Lankan Tamils of Toronto, numbering close to 200 000 now. There are several dance schools, and if a student is diligent with the right teacher, it would approximate, or even better some of the Indian schools. All you'd need is the right white kid who was really interested. Even here in Edmonton, where the community is small, almost all the Sri Lankan girls learn bharata natyam, starting at about age 6 or so.

Aum Namasivaya

Eastern Mind
15 October 2010, 06:25 PM
Vannakkam: Here's another interesting take:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXCrodzIQ4g

Aum Namasivaya

issacnewton
08 June 2011, 08:08 AM
But i should point out that there is some trend among christians in india to
come up with christian classical dance. i have seen this in TV , with some
christian girls from kerala doing bharat natyam in praise of jesus junk
on christmas. the head of government dance academy in chennai is a christian
called leela samson. and from her comments i see that she is no friendly towards
hinduism. she has tendency to disparage various devatas involved in classical dance. thats why i think christians are more dangerous and insidious in the long term. christians make this cultural invasion sound very peaceful and nice.
but we should see through that. while reading about pagans in europe, i learnt that this is how greek culture was undermined. christians started using greek
philosophy to undermine greek religion and culture. read this from a great pagan blog.......

http://egregores.blogspot.com/2011/04/christian-appropriation-of-platonic.html