Traditional Indian dance performance
Today we had another rare holiday treat: a demonstration of traditional Indian dance, in the style called Kalakshetra, performed for us by Anagha Sundararajan. Anagha is a University of Chicago graduate law student who has been studying and performing traditional dance since the age of 4 years.
She presented slides and explained briefly the history of traditional styles of dance in various regions of India. These dances are a way of telling stories in a visual "language" using symbolism inherent to the culture of the audience. Most of the dances are religion-themed, with specific gestures and positions representing various Hindu deities.
Here is Anagha performing a dance with musical accompaniment:
And here Anagha performs another piece, this time explaining the movements first and then performing them with accompanying Hindi.