Classical Dances of India: Eight Forms, States and Gurus

The correct answer is B, Tamil Nadu. Bharatanatyam grew in the temples of Tamil Nadu, where it was performed by devadasis under the older name sadir or dasiattam, and it was brought to the concert stage in the twentieth century by E. Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi Arundale, who founded Kalakshetra at Madras in 1936.

Option A, Kerala, is the home of two other classical forms, Kathakali and Mohiniyattam, and is the commonest distractor here because all three are southern. Option C, Karnataka, has the rich Yakshagana tradition, but Yakshagana is a folk theatre form and is not in the Akademi list of eight classical dances. Option D, Andhra Pradesh, is the home of Kuchipudi, which is also a southern classical form and is often confused with Bharatanatyam; the surest way to separate them is that Kuchipudi is a dance-drama in which performers speak, while Bharatanatyam is a silent solo.

The correct answer is B, Kathakali. The name means story-play, and the form stages episodes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Its characters are identified by make-up types, chiefly pacha for noble heroes, kathi for proud anti-heroes such as Ravana, thadi for fierce figures, kari for demonesses and minukku for gentle women and sages.

Option A, Mohiniyattam, is the other Kerala form but is its exact opposite in mood: a solo, feminine and lasya dance in a plain white kasavu sari with a gold border, with no mask-like make-up at all. Option C, Kuchipudi, is a dance-drama too, but it belongs to Andhra Pradesh and its performers speak as well as dance. Option D, Odissi, is from Odisha and is built on the chowk and tribhanga postures. Remember the pair: Kerala gives Kathakali and Mohiniyattam, one loud and one quiet.

The correct answer is B, Bharata Muni. The Natya Shastra is the Sanskrit treatise that lays down the grammar every classical form follows, dividing performance into nritta, nritya and natya, naming the four kinds of abhinaya, and describing the rasas. It is called the fifth Veda because it is said to take speech from the Rigveda, song from the Samaveda, gesture from the Yajurveda and emotion from the Atharvaveda.

Option A, Nandikeshvara, wrote the Abhinaya Darpana, the later manual that catalogues the hand gestures or mudras, so it is the second text and not the first. Option C, Abhinavagupta, was the Kashmiri scholar who wrote the celebrated commentary on the Natya Shastra, the Abhinavabharati, not the treatise itself. Option D, Jayadeva, composed the Gita Govinda, the lyric poem on Radha and Krishna that supplies Odissi with its favourite themes.

The correct answer is C, 2000. Sattriya of Assam was the eighth and last form to enter the Akademi list, and that single date is the fact papers ask most often about it. The form was created by the Vaishnava saint Srimanta Sankardeva in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and was preserved by monks in the sattras, the monasteries that give it its name, as part of the Ankiya Naat plays.

Option A, 1958, is wrong but plausible because the Akademi itself had been set up in the preceding years and its early awards date from that decade. Option B, 1980, and option D, 2010, are round dates offered as traps; nothing was added to the classical list in either year. Fix the sequence in memory: seven forms were recognised earlier, and Sattriya joined them in 2000 to make eight.

The correct answer is B, Kuchipudi. In the tarangam the dancer balances on the raised rim of a brass plate and moves it in rhythm, often with a pot of water carried on the head, which demonstrates the control over balance for which the Andhra form is famous. Kuchipudi takes its name from a village in the Krishna district and was shaped into a dance-drama by Siddhendra Yogi, who composed the Bhama Kalapam.

Option A, Odissi, is recognised instead by the chowk and tribhanga postures and by its use of Jayadeva's Gita Govinda. Option C, Manipuri, is known for the Raas Leela, the pung drum and the stiff kumil skirt, and its movement is deliberately soft. Option D, Kathak, is known for rapid chakkars and intricate footwork on a flat floor, not for balancing on any object.

The correct answer is A, Kathak. It began with the kathakars, the story-tellers who narrated the epics in north Indian temples, and under Mughal patronage it moved into the court, took on Persian costume and turned towards abstract rhythm. It is danced upright with rapid pirouettes called chakkars, intricate footwork measured against the tabla and heavy ankle bells, and its gharanas are Lucknow, Jaipur and Banaras.

Option B, Odissi, remained a temple art of Odisha carried by the maharis and the gotipuas and received no court patronage of this kind. Option C, Sattriya, grew inside the Vaishnava monasteries of Assam and was deliberately kept apart from courtly life. Option D, Bharatanatyam, was a temple dance of Tamil Nadu performed by devadasis; it was later supported by the Maratha rulers of Thanjavur, but it is Kathak alone that carries the Mughal imprint.

The correct answer is B, Odissi. The form rests on two basic stances, the square chowk and the three-bent tribhanga, in which the head, the torso and the hips are deflected in opposite directions to produce the sculptural line seen in Odisha temple carving. That resemblance to the figures in the Udayagiri caves is also the argument for calling Odissi the oldest surviving classical form.

Option A, Manipuri, keeps the body soft and continuous rather than angled, with the feet landing gently and the face held serene. Option C, Mohiniyattam, is built on a swaying, circular movement compared to a coconut palm, not on fixed bends. Option D, Kathakali, uses a wide squat with the weight carried on the outer edges of the feet, and its expression is carried by the painted face and the eyes rather than by any bend of the torso.

The correct answer is A, Rukmini Devi Arundale. She learned Bharatanatyam at a time when the form was losing its temple patronage, gave it a place on the public concert stage, and founded Kalakshetra in 1936 as a school where it could be taught systematically along with music and craft. Her work, together with the campaigning of E. Krishna Iyer, is the standard answer to any question on the revival of Bharatanatyam.

Option B, T. Balasaraswati, was the great dancer of the hereditary devadasi line and a contemporary of Rukmini Devi, but she founded no such institution. Option C, Sonal Mansingh, is an Odissi and Bharatanatyam dancer of a later generation. Option D, Sitara Devi, was a Kathak dancer of the Banaras tradition and belongs to a different form altogether.

The correct answer is B, Kathi. The word means knife, and the make-up is marked by an upturned knife-shaped line drawn on a green base, worn by characters who are brave and powerful but arrogant, of whom Ravana and Duryodhana are the standard examples. Identifying the vesham from the description of the face is a favourite question on Kathakali.

Option A, pacha, is the plain green face of wholly noble heroes such as Rama, Krishna and Arjuna, and is the type most often shown in photographs. Option C, minukku, meaning polished, is the soft and lightly tinted make-up of gentle women, sages and brahmins. Option D, kari, meaning black, is the make-up of demonesses and forest characters. Learn the five together, since papers set them as a matching list: pacha, kathi, thadi, kari and minukku.

The correct answer is B, Manipuri. Its central theme is the Raas Leela of Radha and Krishna, the feet land softly, the face is held serene rather than expressive, and the dancer wears the stiff, barrel-shaped kumil skirt. The pung is played and danced with at the same time in the item called pung cholom, and the older ritual tradition of the region is the Lai Haraoba. Rabindranath Tagore brought Manipuri teachers to Santiniketan and made the form known across India.

Option A, Sattriya, also treats Vaishnava themes but belongs to the sattras of Assam and uses the khol drum. Option C, Odissi, draws its Krishna themes from the Gita Govinda and is accompanied by the mardala. Option D, Kuchipudi, stages the Bhama Kalapam and uses the mridangam, not the pung.

The correct answer is B, Srimanta Sankardeva. The Assamese saint of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries founded the sattras, the Vaishnava monasteries that give the form its name, and created the Ankiya Naat plays staged in the namghar, in which the dance developed. Celibate monks kept the tradition alive inside those monasteries, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi recognised it as classical in 2000.

Option A, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, led the Bhakti movement in Bengal and Odisha in the same period, but the sattras of Assam are not his foundation. Option C, Siddhendra Yogi, belongs to Andhra Pradesh and shaped Kuchipudi, composing the Bhama Kalapam. Option D, Vallathol Narayana Menon, was the Malayalam poet who founded Kerala Kalamandalam in 1930 and revived Kathakali and Mohiniyattam, both of which belong to Kerala and not to Assam. A safe way to hold the four apart is to attach a region to each name: Sankardeva with Assam, Chaitanya with Bengal, Siddhendra Yogi with Andhra Pradesh and Vallathol with Kerala.

The correct answer is D, Gwalior. Gwalior is the oldest gharana of Hindustani classical vocal music, not of Kathak, and it is placed among these options precisely because a candidate who remembers the word gharana without remembering the art form will pick it. Keep the two lists separate in memory.

Options A, B and C are the three recognised gharanas of Kathak. The Lucknow gharana, associated with Bindadin Maharaj and later with Birju Maharaj, is known for expression and grace. The Jaipur gharana is known for vigorous footwork and complex rhythmic patterns. The Banaras gharana, to which Sitara Devi belonged, has its own distinctive use of the floor and of natural stance. A fourth, Raigarh, is sometimes added, but the standard examination answer lists three.