Adavus’ role in Classical Bharatha Natyam

Subashini Pathmanathan

The adavus comprise beautiful movements, systematic rhythmic patterns and high technical factors in dance

Adavus means the steps. In any dance form whether it is a classical dance, folk dance, ritual dance, modern dance, fusion dance or creative dance the role of adavus play an important role.

In Classical Bharatha Natyam, dance is divided into three main divisions: Nirtha, Nirthya, and Natya. The adavus are confined to the Nirtha category. Nirtha means pure dance, without revealing any meaning. All the basic aspects of dance such as leg positions, hand positions, hand movements, body positions, neck movements, body movements, eye movements and eyebrow movements are seen in Nirtha, and Nirthya. The term adavus are used in Kandyan dance too. Adavus are the basic units for any dance form.

Adiyarku Nallar (the 13th century commentator who wrote the commentary on Sillapathykaram) called the beautiful movements of these pure nirtha rhythmic patterns as chokam. He felt that its beauty would impress those who see the pure Nirtha. That is why he named it as Chokam.

Adavus comprise different standing positions this is called Isthana positions. Generally, there are three basic body positions: Sama Isthana (straight standing position), Araimandi Isthana (half-sitting position) and Mulu Mandi Isthana (full sitting position). All the adavus are based on these three basic positions.

Other technical aspects in adavus are Sari, Karana, Anga Karana and Desi Karana.

The terms Sari and Karanas are generally referred to Sari Karana or Karanams. This means the leg movements and hand movements are used together in pure nirtha. Another term, Angakaranam is often used in classical Bharatha Natyam. It means more than one Karanam together. After the sage Bharatha, who is believed to have written the thesis Bharatha Sastra, several other writers have written numerous thesis on dance. They have used another word, Desikaranam which means the jumping positions in dance.

Altogether there are 18 varieties of adavus in Bharatha Natyam today. These adavus are based on three basic body Isthana positions. However, the number differs from text to text. The 18 varieties of adavus have given rise to the so-called four different styles in Bharatha Natyam.

All the styles use the same category of adavus and sub adavus, but the execution of the adavus differ from one style to another. The different styles arose because the gurus stationed in different areas used different techniques in the execution of adavus. There are four styles in Classical Bharatha NatyamPandanallur, Kaanchipuram, Thanjavoor and Vazhuvoor.

Adavus are the foundation for the dance and it takes a lot of time to learn them.

These pure Nirtha aspects of dance do not reveal any meaning. The hand muthras or the hastas, used in adavus do not indicate any meaning. The muthras used in adavus are generally called Ellil hands, or Nirtha hands. The muthras used for Abinaya are called Tholil hands.

Ellil hands mean beauty hands, to show the beauty of the adavus. Tholil hands are used in abinaya to interpret the meaning of the song. In the nirtha, 13 muthras are used. These muthras comprises some single hand muthras and some double hand muthras. In adavus, nearly 10 foot positions are used.

One can see the use of adavus in all items in Bharathe Natyam. Allaripu and Jetheswaram are the two main traditional Nirtha adavu based items. Even adavus play major role in the Nattuwangam Sollukadus, and swras in the song or in other words. Beautiful varieties of sequence of adavus are compiled for Nattuwangam Sollukadus and swaras of songs. Varieties of adavus are called Korvai adavus.

They end with Theermana adavus. In Classical Bharatha Natyam certain adavus are repeatedly done three times continuously, or certain adavus are selected to use at the end of the adavu Korvais. These are called Theermana adavus.

All adavus should strictly adhere to thala (tempo) and kala (speed). Laya is another important aspect in adavus. It means proper balancing between the thala and kala.

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