Customer Reviews

Dances of India - Learning Bharata Natyam

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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.

This is an excellent video. The quality is definitely a 5 stars. The instructor's method is easy to follow and understand.

This video will provide the people of India's culture a method for keeping their traditions alive throughout generations. Young as well as old, experienced as well as inexperienced, will be able to follow the instructions.

The instructor's method of sharing the connection of body, hand, and eye movements, helps the viewer understand the importance of each movement.

A welcome addition to the dance arena and more so, to the Culture of India.

Among the educational Bharatnatyam DVDs, this one is the most expensive. Yes, the image quality is better than in, for example, the Drishya Bharatham DVDs, but what about the accuracy and precision of the technique, and clarity of explanations? Of course we cannot compare J.Suryanarayanamurthy, a Kalakshetra professor, with P.Chebrolu. So why P.Chebrolu's DVD should be 3 times more expensive than J.Suryanarayanamurthy's?

Instead of giving too many cultural introduction (we all can read books, and do not need lectures on DVDs!), P.Chebrolu should have given more time to actually show and explain the moves deeper.

Anyone who actually tries to learn anything with this DVD will end up with too many unanswered questions.

If you are new to Bharata Natyam, this will be an interesting video to watch. You will not become a Bharata Natyam star after watching it, but you will surely find it useful if want to familiarize yourself of this Indian Classican dance.

Pro's:
1.This is one of 3 video's of Bharata Natyam that you can get on a DVD, which means that you can see even the facial expressions very well
2.Basic introduction to an extremely complex world of Bharata Natyam for non-Indian students who are new to the Indian culture
3.Well-structured and directed.

Con's:
1.In some places it looks like a fusion of other dance styles with Bharata Natyam, which is fine if you don't plan to become a top dancer like Balasaraswati in the past or Medha Hari of today
2.Covers a very limited area of the Bharata Natyam arsenal (roughly, about 0.1%) - what can you expect from a short video, after all?
3.Performance is good by the American standards but rather inadequate by the Indian (have you seen young Bharata Natyam dancers especially when they dance in the temples at the Hindu festivals?).

My five year old daughter just started taking classical dance classes. As I do not have dance background, I was struggling to help her practice at home. Then one of my friend recommended this video to me.

This video breaks up the steps, hand gestures and other movements into simple segments and makes it easy for me to help my daughter learn. Everyday after school, I just put the tape on and make my daughter follow the video. Some times I get up and try it out too. This has become a mom and daughter fun time.

My daughter has made excellent progress in the recent weeks. She now can remember the detailed aspects of each movement. She can pronounce all the Sanskrit terminology. She is moving very fast compared to other children of her age. Her teacher is very impressed by her progress. I recommend this to all the parents like me who are planning to join their child in the classical dance class. It really made things easy on us.

This is a good introduction video for those who are just curious about Bharatnatyam and who are not planning to practise it, even if this video is mis-named as "instructional". Of course, it is a pity there are no online trailers of it, but at least you can find a lot of its screenshots on jayq.org . Considering the virtual absence of any other well-structured instructional Bharatnatyam DVDs that present most of its aspects, I think that $25 is a good bargain for "Learning Bharata Natyam".

Padma Chebrolu's two DVD's are the ONLY instructional DVDs that are to be found in the whole world. Thanks to David Morrison, they are made by the international standards and with the international students in mind, and are way above any instructional VHS or VCD videos that have ever been produced.

And because these two DVDs are instructional, there is no point comparing them to other DVDs for 2 reasons:

1) Anita Ratnam's is a just brief general (like an encyclopedia article) introduction to Bharatanatyam, while Medha Hari's is a showcase of a top young dancer whose agility and facial abhinaya is naturally different from the older dancers (it is unfair to compare a 50-year-old gymnast with a 16-year-old!)

2) Anita Ratnam's, P.Chebrolu's and Medha Hari's styles are all too different to be compared with each other.

This is why by buying P.Chebrolu's videos you never risk coming across anything similar. And, at the Amazon.com price, this is a very good bargain.

Franca Richi

This is a great video if you want to learn more about the techniques, practise and training in Bharata Natyam. You could probably learn some basics by self study from it, but for this use the video is limited because each technique is only demonstrated once or twice so you'd probably want to copy and repeat each technique many times on another blank tape.

I wish I had read the reviews of others before I bought this video, because I wouldn't have purchased it.

Don't buy this if you want to work out through learning dance (like I did). The dance instruction is constantly interrupted with explanations of culture and such. The dancing will in no way get your heart rate up.

This is an excellent video for people who want to learn simple dance steps and how to pronounce and spell cultural dance movements. Also very informational concerning other areas of Indian dance culture.

I found this video to be an excellent instructional piece. It is well written and directed. The instructor is a most talented dancer and an informative teacher. The video is easy to follow and will be an asset to anyone studying the fine art of Bharata Natyam.