Ideal Qualities of Dancers
A professional Bharatanatyam dancer must demonstrate a number of qualities. As Sangitaratnakara puts it, the true dance is connected to the beauty of the body, therefore any other dance is simply a parody (VII.1246).
The AbhinayaDarpana has a sloka that describes Patra Prana Dasha Smrutaha - the ten essentials of the dancer: Javaha (Agility), Sthirathvam (Steadiness), Rekha (graceful lines), Bhramari(balance in pirouettes), Drishti (glance), Shramaha (hard work), Medha (intelligence), Shraddha(devotion), Vacho (good speech), and Geetam (singing ability).
A professional danseuse (patra), according to Abhinayadarpanam (one of the two most authoritative texts on Bharatanatyam), must possess the following qualities. She has to be youthful, slender, beautiful, with large eyes, with well-rounded breasts, self-confident, witty, pleasing, well aware of when to dance and when to stop, able to follow the flow of songs and music, and to dance to the time (thalam), with splendid costumes, and of a happy disposition.
As Natya Shastra states the qualities required of a female dancer narthaki, "Women who have beautiful limbs, are conversant with the sixty-four arts and crafts (Kalā), are clever, courteous in behaviour, free from female diseases, always bold, free from indolence, inured to hard work, capable of practising various arts and crafts, skilled in dancing and songs, who excel by their beauty, youthfulness, brilliance and other qualities all other women standing by, are known as female dancers
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“So the Platonic Year
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—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)