Mime 5: Waterlily

WL stepped onto the stage for her Mime dance. Other people would think of mime as simply acting out words.

No.

In WL's preferred form of Indian dance, Bharatnatyam, all of the dance was mime. No words were said, but everything was portrayed in the music.

Bharatnatyam consists of mainly Nritta and Abhinaya.

Nritta is perfect, fine-tuned movements, hand gestures, neck gestures, foot movements and a great many positions.

But today, the main focus was of Abhinaya: miming a story. The same hand gestures used for Nritta along with the positions, grace, skill and appropriate facial expressians brought out the essences in Bharatnatyam: Bhava- mind, Rasa- flavour, Tala- rhythm, and Natyam- dance.

WL would be performing a piece of Bharatnatyam that had several section, all portraying different deities and the story of Rama.

WL used a shloka, a prayer to describe the Lord Shiva.

The words appeared on the screen as she stepped onto the stage in her beautiful Bharatnatyam costume.

WL slid her arms down the length of her body, depicting the form of Shiva, using the hastas Katakamukha and Alapadma.



She walked forwards and looked up, following her gentle wrist movements that showed the rhythmic rotations of the planets.

She then clapped her hands softly, and spread them out in a wide gesture, her eyebrows furrowed as iif to say that "The planets are nothing compared to Lord Shiva"