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Ballroom and such in India? 3

The first stage in dancing is individual, next is in groups, which is followed by Ballroom and such dances performed in pairs, and lastly are the classical dances.

At the very core of the Ballroom and Latin American dancing are all the movements and the experience felt by a child when being pampered/played with/soothed/cared for. The only difference later on as grown ups dancing such dances being that “I do my walking and you do yours; rest all remains the same, you are my baby and I am yours.” Thus Ballroom and Latin American dances are truly universal dances the world over.

For survival in life one moves upwards on the ladder of success/progress, climbing rung by rung. Step by step we need to move towards our goals, and this is an established fact, and dancing is no exception to this thumb rule.

Thus the first stage in dancing is the individual dancing. It starts from the very childhood when one learns to stand on ones two feet independently, or probably it starts much earlier. Any way the movements are very personal and primarily for ones self.

The next stage in dancing is when one feels the necessity of socialising consciously, since larger is the company better is the self-assurance. At such a stage dancing alone is quite a difficult task. This difficulty is overcome by adopting a certain formality, like dressing up and livening up the attitude as in a pub, discotheque, or adopting the fervour and technique for folk dancing.

Life is all about progress. Thus as one hones the techniques in dancing it becomes more comfortable dancing in smaller groups. And the smallest group ultimately is the pair. Keeping in tune with nature the pair is of a male and a female, since it forms a complete human being. This is therefore the third stage in dancing under which fall all Ballroom and Latin American dance.

When further honing of the techniques is done in dancing, then number of people reduces drastically to such an extent that it necessitates individual dancing. This is the last stage in dancing under which category fall all the various classical dances the world over.

Now having established this logic that there are also stages in dancing, which need to be climbed step by step, before a society can really reach the great heights in dancing. Here “heights” is in terms of effort, intellectual qualities, fitness of the body and mind, discipline, and individuality and many such qualities required in a dancer. Thus I firmly believe that in the past, dancing in India has also undergone such step by step development, and the results are the very rich heritage of various Indian classical dances as on today, like the Bharat Natyam, Kathak, Kucchipudi, Odisi, Mohini Attam, Manipuri, and many others.

In today’s India we have all the stages in dancing that are quite popular amongst the majority, except the likes of Ballroom and Latin American dances that only a handful really respect. The most popular reason for not considering Ballroom dancing is that “it is not part of our culture…” The irony is that there are many ancient temples with sculptures that seem to connote to something very akin today’s Ballroom and Latin American dances, and yet it is interpreted something else, primarily because of the varying degrees of nudity.

This is the reason for the picture posted on the earlier pages. All of them show various dance movements that are also used in today’s Ballroom and Latin American dances.