“Yato hasto tato drishti,
Yato drishtih tato manah,
Yato mans tato bhavo,
yato bhavo tatah rasah”
Abhinaya Darpana
“Where the hand goes, the eyes follow,
Where the eyes go, the mind follows,
Where the mind goes, the expression follows,
Where the expression goes, the emotion is evoked”
Translation to English
Dance is a meditation because it grounds us in the physical. Dance can expose you to the limits of your capabilities and inspire you to go beyond them. But there are two kinds of limits when it comes to physical movement. There is the art of going big with energetic, explosive, and often gravity-defying movements. Then, there is the art of subtlety: a perfectly timed glance, an almost imperceptible twitch of the body, or even a slight wiggle of the eyebrows. The difference is comparable to that between the scales of astrophysics and quantum mechanics. There is a beauty and difficulty to the mastery of both kinds of movement.
The former comes from athletic practice and enthusiasm. There’s been a huge rise in acrobatics in Indian dance shows, and for good reason. Dancers doing cartwheels, backbends, and flips to fast-paced music. It is captivating to a general audience and dramatically shows off the skills of the dancers. This performance is a really good example of a dance with big movements that I think is well-balanced with great form, emotion, and novel moves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJhKfU_AUeM
There are some people that complain that dance has become gymnastics and nothing more, and there is so truth to that as well. I think the balance is hard to find, because of the nature of these kind of shows. It is therefore important to remind ourselves of the other kind of movement.
Subtle movements are far more physically accessible and often more effective tools of conveying emotion. They can require countless hours of focused training for the development of muscle memory and fine motor skill. On this page, I hope to elaborate on these subtle movements in different contexts of dance. Here’s some examples of beautiful use of the “subtle” momements I’m talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgiLOzFQh14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2qmRc1YEU0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvGbpDYKJxk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjOgtPm43AE
When dancing, the audience is mostly tuned in to your upper body. What your feet do don’t matter too much when considering the art of subtlety, as long as they are on beat and you are in the proper Araimandi position.
There are some details to consider regarding your upper body at every point of movement, as well as some basic thumb rules: