Costumes of seven Indian classical dances

Subashini PATHMANATHAN

Each Indian classical dance form has its own unique and designed costume. One can easily identify from the pattern and design.

Among the seven Indian classical dances Bharatha Natyam and Kuchupidi use same pattern costumes. Bharatha Natyam and Kuchupidi are performed by male as well as females. Anyhow the male performing artistes in Bharatha Natyam are quite lesser as compared to female performers. On the other hand Kuchupidi is originally a male dance form.

Feminine dance

Initially the male Kuchupidi dancers adorned themselves as females and danced. Later the female dancers actively started taking part in the Kuchupidi dance. Now it is mostly recognized as a female dance form.

Kuttanasan Subadraharanam

Mohini Attam uses only white colour costume with a gold glittering border. It is only a feminine dance form. Only females participate with beautiful simple designed costume. The Mohini Attam dancers wear white pleated costumes and for the top they wear upper saree jacket. More or less Mohini Attam resembles the Bharatha Natyam costume. Normally a nine-yard saree is required for this dance form. Such a saree is profusely and nicely pleated. Over the skirt another small fan is worn around the waist. Mohini Attam is a gentle and slender dance form.

Odissi is another East Indian classical dance form. The pattern of Odissi costume always resembles the Bharatha Natyam costumes, yet the Bharatha Natyam and Kuchupidi costumes are much more expensive and richer than the Odissi costumes.

The male Odissi dancers are called Gothipuas. These Gothipuas generally wear white colour Dhoti with tharu. Female Odissi dancers wear real silk sarees. This real pure silk saree is often called Pattu saree. Like Mohini Attam, Odissi dancers also use nine yards sarees, and for upper part they wear traditional blouse which is called Kanchula. Kanchula is mostly adorned with stones. Another important piece worn around the hip is known as Nibibandha.

Jhoba is a cord with tussle at both ends, ties around the waist. These are the basic costume pieces of the odissi dance costume. Kathakali is mainly a male dominating dance form. The costumes and make up of Kathakali are exceptional and unique factors. The head gear and certain ornaments of Kathakali are made out of soft wood. Some gilt jewels are used for this dance. Such ornaments are studded and decorated with glass pieces to provide some rich look. All these ornaments are considered as a part of Kathakali dress. Some dyed feathers also tied with the dresses. More and more cloths are worn, over and over, in the Kathakali to make up the size bigger. Not like other Indian classical dances all the jewelers are tied with the cloth. This is called Uduttukettu.

Body shape

The Kathakali dancers also wear Uttariyam. Uttariyam means cloth folded and nicely shaped with the body. And glass-studded pieces always decorate the shoulder Kavasam. The head gear ornaments as well as dresses are generally known as Koppu in Kathakali. The dressing place is called Aniyara.

Kathak is another well known classical dance form of India. This is popularly known as North Indian Classical dance form. The dress of Kathak reveals the combination of Hindu and Moghul cultural fusion. More or less it represents and resembles the Moghul culture. Female Kathak dancers wear flared long skirts, stitched out of gold or silver embroidery thread worked sarees. Jackets are tight and with long sleeves.

Many times the male dancers wear Kurta top and Pyjama. Manipuri is another East Indian dance form. Manipuri dance costumes have unique style and pattern. A specially designed stiff skirt is used for Manipuri dance by the female dancers. Green colour stiff skirt is often worn by the Radha character.

Dancing face

Red colour is chosen for Gopis. All skirts are decorated with sequins and mirror work. Such puffed skirts move beautifully when the dancers move and squats. Gauze veil covers the head, without covering jewellery adorned hair, and beautiful faces of the dancers. Rasaleela dance is one of the important dances of Manipuri. In such particular dance, Lord Krishna wears beautiful head dress decorated with peacock feather. Lord Krishna character wears yellow dhoti and embroidery worked jacket.

Bharatha Natyam and Kuchipudi use almost same pattern of costumes. Both these dance forms use pyjama with front pleats costumes. The upper garment is the ordinary saree blouse, with permanently pleated shawl.

The elderly artistes prefer somber colours, and pay less attention to costumes. Similarly the selection of ornaments the younger generation tends to be flamboyant. Elderly artistes are restrained in the choice of dresses and ornaments, and pay more attention to the quality and excellence in performance, rather than the external trapping. Originally the performing artistes are mainly women.

But at present the men have invaded the performing field of the art. The male dancers’ upper body is bare and covered only with ornaments, or glittering shawal. Often female artistes wear short sarees, while the men wear dhoti with tharu or pyjama with pleats in front.

Some female artistes instead of wearing short sarees have the sarees tailored as short sarees. In pyjama costumes, the pleats are sometimes straight, or slant pleats covering from left to right. Sometimes the pleats overlap each other in three layers. Sometimes they use the skirts with front pleats, but the male Bharatha Natyam dancers do not wear skirt costumes with front pleats, and they do not wear many pleats.

For some special dances such as Meenakshi Thaladu, Meenakshi Kaliyanam and Kurathi, special dresses are tailored. These dances are performed by females only. In the case of peacock dance and cobra dance special colour costumes are selected, similarly for Rama Avathar and Krishna Avathar blue colour costumes are used, and Narasimma Avathar red colour costumes are often used.

The dance costumes of Chola period are still followed with some alteration. In the olden days the devadasis, the traditional temple dancers could not afford rich materials for their costumes, they borrowed it from merchant class, the Chettiyar Class.

The credit of the contribution to the present design of costumes go to the late E Krishna Iyer. Late Rukmani Devi Arundel and Dr Padma Subramaniyam have also designed beautiful costumes which are adopted from the temple sculpture. The uniqueness of Bharatha Natyam lies in its captivating dances and scintillating dresses.