The tribhanga posture, in which the body is bent at three places, is a defining feature of which classical dance?

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.