Makeup and hair dressing are important aspects for dance
Subashini Pathmanathan
Make up for dance is a unique art; each dance has a particular type
of make up. Each folk dance or each classical dance is having certain,
selective type, of dance make up and selective type of hair dressing.
Make up, has developed a separate branch of study, and a separate
profession in the society. The experience, involvement, and the
individual interest of a make up artist are much more important than the
theoretical make up artist who learned the art, only by theory.
Earlier for the classical dances, and for the folk dances, the make
up artists were not engaged to do the make up for the dancers. But today
for the dancers, actors, dance drama artistes, cinema actors, and for
the tele drama artistes, the role of a make up, artiste is very much
needed.
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Kathakali make up |
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make up artists are well trained, and engaged in this
profession. Each country is having numerous classical dances,
and folk dances. Each dance has its own selective particular
unique type of make up. Earlier for all the dances, mostly
direct herbal products were used. But today ready made
commercialized products are freely available in different
shades, and different colour combinations, in the market. The
products are traded under different brand names. Some brand
products are very good, and have a long standing reputation.
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Kathakali make up |
Except the dances, for the dance dramas, cinema actors, tele drama
actors, they use to apply the make up according to the nature and the
need of the characters. Even the television channels, are having their
own make up artists. Not only the television channels are having their
own make up artists, but also the advertisement companies are also
employing their own make up artists to do the make up for the
individuals, for their own business advertisement purposes.
Facial makeup for dance is a difficult task, specially for the
classical dances. In some classical dances, very light and simple makeup
is used. In some classical dances, very rich makeup is used. But
whatever it is, either if it is a classical dance or if it is folk
dance, that particular chosen dance form, should have a particular type
of makeup, and it should be identical.
Similarly some have sharp features, and some have blunt features.
Even the eye shape, the eyebrow shape, and the size of the eyes are
entirely different from one and another. For the eyes, along with the
eyetex, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, and with different colour shade eye
shadows are used. Shaping the eyes according to the type of the eye is
really a very difficult task and extra ordinary artistic talent is
needed to shape the eyes.
For the mouth shape, and according to the skin colour of the
artistes, appropriate lip stick colour should be selected. To outline
the lips, the lipstick outliner pencils are used. Even the nose shape
also differs from one individual, to another. At the same time, the
makeup for the small children is quite difficult, as compared to the
grownup artistes.
The shape and the size of the face also differs from one and another.
Some have round face, some have broad face, and some have narrow face,
and some have long face etc. Hence the makeup, for the eyes, lips,
drawing the eye brows, and painting the lips, totally depends on the
face shape of the individual.
For the cheeks rouge is applied, to blush up and brighten the face.
But sometimes it is not suitable to all the artistes, especially for the
dark complexion dancers. For the classical dance forms unique and
standard type of hair dressing should be adopted. Even the basic
structure of the costumes is not much changed, only now and then; some
little modifications are adopted to design the costumes.
For the need and necessity of the chosen and selective character of
the dance drama, the facial makeup is adopted. For instance for a God’s
character the make up is different from a demon’s character. Even for a
dance drama the makeup for Lord Shiva is a distinctive make up as
compared to Lord Krishna’s facial make up. The hair dressing is also
entirely different from one and another in a dance drama.
For instance the make up and the hair dressing for the character of
Rama are different from Ravana’s. Similarly the colour shades of the
characters also differ from one character to another character, in a
dance drama. For instance, the characters of Lord Krishna, and Lord
Vishnu, are bluish, and Lord Siva’s colour is mostly yellow in
complexion.
Each folk dance has its own distinctive costumes, distinctive make
up, and also it has its own distinctive hair dress. The nature of the
costumes, or the make up, or the hair dressing cannot be changed easily
in a folk dance, or classical dance, because all these dances are
totally based on deeply rooted culture, tradition, and customs. |
