Dances of India - Learning Bharata Natyam
by David Morrison
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DVD details
Actor: Padma ChebroluDirector: David Morrison
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Dolby, NTSC
Running Time: 60 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-07-28
Studio: Cultural Centre of India LLC
DVD Reviews of Dances of India - Learning Bharata Natyam
DVD Review: Basics in a nutshell - celebrating the commercial birth of the American "Bharatanatyam"
Summary: 1 Stars
First of all, it was odd to read in the Product description that the author thinks that "Bharata Natyam as performed by hundreds of millions of Indians all over the world". In reality, less than 1 among 10000 Indians know even the basics of Bharatnatyam.
This DVD lets you watch 28 mudras, 20 hastas, 3 warm-up exercises (which is ridiculously inadequate), 8 head movements, 8 eye movements, 4 neck (stiff!) movements, 10 "poses", and 29 steps at 2 speeds. Considering that each DVD player can let you play the movie at half or quater speed, the whole idea of giving 2 speeds is foolish as there is no explanation of the different phases (and common errors) of the movements. The "guru" herself does not seem to realize the miriad of errors that she makes herself.
The cameraman was unaware of the difference between shooting a belly dancer and a Bharatanatyam dancer: very often the dancer's hands and feet in this DVD are cut out of the frame, and only the dancer's face and stomach are visible.
What surprised me most in "Dances of India - Learning Bharata Natyam" is the rather useless ("talking head" only) lenghthy introduction (7 minutes). All in all, nearly half of all the time in this DVD we see Padma Chebrolu's "talking head" - rather awkward for a "Bharatanatyam guru" too.
Don't expect to find anything useful in the "Costumes & Make-up" section. You can learn as much from here as from seeing 1 photo of a Bharatanatyam dancer.
The instructor, a full-time software engineer with an MBA, is well-aware of the inadequate quality of her demonstrations of something that is presented as "Bharata Natyam". If Tony Blair loses his job soon, he might well go to India and teach western ballet there. He will surely be better at it than P.Chebrolu at Bharata Natyam.
Anyone who knows how to search the Internet can find Bharata Natyam DVD trailers from Padma Chebrolu's "Learning Bharata Natyam" and see that it is no match for serious instructional Bharatnatyam DVDs like, for example, SriDevi Nrithyalaya's videos.
I bought this "Dances of India - Learning Bharata Natyam" DVD from Amazon out of curiosity, and now regret paying so much for another piece of junk.
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