Dancing is,
certainly, one of the most appealing and attractive of arts. It embraces so many other lovely expressions of beauty, rhythm,
poetry, music, drama, colour. No wonder it has been described as a divine art, for even the gods seem to have indulged in
it. Dancing is the most natural expresion of the human emotions.
India developed
dancing into a very elaborated science. Though centuries of upheavals have shaken India and changed many of its phases, the
old art is still preserved, in all its pristine glory in some forgotten villages of south India.
Dominated
politicaly, strangled economically, disintegrated socially, India's creative impulse has weakened if not completely been destroyed.
She has not had the vigour or energy left to create a new out of the old. Moreover art forms in India are made to conform
rigidly to set conventions and they have come to assume almost ritualistic sanctity which could not easily be broken.
But India has
moved with the times. Her people have changed and are changing. Though they love the old, they belong to a new world. The
new being needs nourishment. The ancient spirit has to be interpreted to new eyes.
