Cultural Rethinking - Dance and Music

India has had a long romance with the art of dance.
Indian dance includes eight classical dance forms, many in narrative forms with mythological elements. The eight classical forms accorded classical dance status  are: bharatanatyam, kathak, kathakali, mohiniattam, kuchipudi, yakshagana, Manipuri, odissi and  sattriya.
In addition to the formal arts of dance, Indian regions have a strong free form, folksy dance tradition. Some of the folk dances include the bhangra,  ghoomar, the dandiya and garba, the yakshagana,  lavani.

Music is an integral part of India's culture. Natyasastra, a 2000 year old Sanskrit text, describes five systems of taxonomy to classify musical instruments. One of these ancient Indian systems classifies musical instruments into four groups according to four primary sources of vibration: strings, membranes, cymbals, and air. It proposed a tonal structure consisting of seven notes, which were named, in descending order, as Krusht, Pratham, Dwitiya, Tritiya, Chaturth, Mandra and Atiswār. These refer to the notes of a flute, which was the only fixed frequency instrument. The Samaveda, and other Hindu texts, heavily influenced India's classical music tradition, which is known today in two distinct styles: Carnatic and Hindustani music. Both the Carnatic music and Hindustani music systems are based on the melodic base (known as Rāga), sung to a rhythmic cycle (known as Taal).





But with the current reality shows like Dance India Dance, Nach Baliye, Jhalak dikhla jaa have introduced a lot of new western Dance styles, eradicating most of the classical dance forms. The youth have also gotten along with this new craze. It has raised so much that, India also got his first full Dance Feature Film "ABCD" in 2013.




The current music of India includes multiple varieties of religious, classical, folk, popular and pop music.
Prominent contemporary Indian musical forms included filmi and Indipop. Filmi refers to the wide range of music written and performed for mainstream Indian cinema, primarily Bollywood, and accounts for more than 70 percent of all music sales in the country. Indipop is one of the most popular contemporary styles of Indian music which is either a fusion of Indian folk, classical or Sufi music with Western musical traditions. All Thanks to musical shows such as Indian Idol, Sa re Ga ma, voice of India.