Tandav is not a Dance Form!

I wrote a bit about this in the dance critique thread, but since my issue does not totally pertain to the performance itself (I am referring to Jayatiji and Divakar's performance) I thought I would make a thread and open it up to wider discussion.

First of all, to be clear, this is about Jayatiji's act but not about her dancing, or about Divakar's choreography (maybe a bit about that too if I start venting...😆) but rather the anomaly of the "dance form" that was given to them. I am a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and I have long made peace and tried to just avoid butchery of classical art forms in the mainstream entertainment industry. But when it sneaks up on me like it did last night, I am always plain insulted by the complete lack of knowledge and complacence on this front.

"Tandav" is not a dance form, unlike the what was prescribed to the other contestants like Samba, Salsa, Tango, even Lavani. Tandav is the cosmic dance of Shiva-Nataraja and since nobody knows what it actually looks like because it is a mythological concept, it is represented differently in different forms with these specific references in common. A tandav in Kathak will be different from tandava in Bharathanatyam and has been done in modern dance as well. As a result, Divakar was given an unfair advantage, to choose art form in which they would represent the act and he certainly took full advantage, adding dashes of at least 4 different forms and some freestyle for good measure!

In short, Divakar was given a concept while the other choreographers were given a dance form. How does that make any sense?

Now to the act itself. Fine, they were given "tandav" as their dance form. Let's just accept that for a second *breathing deeply* I saw no understanding of the context or history behind the concept. There was no narrative, description, only as many energetic steps as possible squeezed in to give that aura of "angry power" to the piece. A simple wikipedia search could have yielded them sufficient knowledge to make the piece much more relevant to its context.

What was that red powder supposed to be? Shouldn't it have been ash instead? 😕

I am not saying you have to be religious about it but you also cannot deny the cultural context from which the dance originates. If that was indeed the issue they wanted to keep it all safe and secular, why not give them Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Odissi as their dance form instead of a term like tandav that is inseparable from the god that performs it?

I would love to hear what you all thought of it. Do I have a point (my classical buddies) about the ignorance of the people who do these competitions? Am I overreacting? Hit me with it. I don't promise to agree, but I look forward to discussing it!

Hi, sam🤗 Tandav is not a dance form it is a sacred mythological dance drama in oddisi too,as of i know in oddisi they mostly do rudratandav,anandatandav or ganapati tandav & when they are doing rudra tadav it shd be basma not kum kum,i suppose.Thus Tandava symbolizes the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction, as well as the daily rhythm of birth and death And U rightly said tandav is different in different dance forms then it shd be named as bharathnatyam tandav or kathak tandav na tandav itself is not a form it is done most of indian dance forms like khathak,oddissi &kuchpudi & bharathnatyam,if they are performing in certain form then they shd say kathak tandav,this was more of free style bollywood tandav. .I agree they have done gracefully. In that age Jyathi's energy was gr8 but it always happens. Here In Gc's performance they have told perticularly ballroom rumba so that was ball room rumba but there is another rumba also which is done in carnivals & in group called afro latin rumba. so same samba ball room samba & carnival otdoor samba are different so I also felt I could not relate to any form ,it was more of freestyle bollywood tandav😕

Richa! 😃

Thanks a lot for your reply! I agree completely. This was more of a Bollywood thandav but the fact remains that we can't blame Jayati or Divakar for that because they worked with what they had been given. Nobody told them what kind of tandav it was supposed to be so they did whatever came to their heads at the mention of the word tandav, and nothing more.

Like you said, even if we assume for a second that there is a separate form of dance called tandav which we have been sadly ignorant of, 😕 there are different kinds of tandav and different reasons behind which Shiva performed each of them. Rudra tandava was not just a random, angry dance, it was a dance of grief, anger and destruction after Sati died, making way for a new cycle of creation! Does nobody even watch DKDMD from JDJ PH? They showed it pretty well there!

Anyway, I agree that all of the dance forms have been bollywoodised but at least they were dance forms to begin with!

i dont know much about dance, but when they were saying tandav as a dance form, I immediately felt, , "umm , ,I realyl dont think that was any dance form" , , then left it to the judges to decide lol. . coz i wasnt sure at that time

but very solid points raised. . . great post

@Vinder: Thanks for your reply. It is not really something you have to be a dancer to know. It falls under the category of general knowledge, really and that is why it baffles me so much that they think it is totally cool to make up their own dance form. It also kind of bothers me that they are so loyal and reverent about all the international dance forms and so flippant with our own when we should know more, not less about it. I am disappointed that the judges didn't say anything...even more disappointed if it is because they didn't know.

@Sam...

Originally posted by: redeye2012

As you rightly pointed out, when one can be so particular about being a purist for the Latin styles, why not for our own forms? Especially, when Remo and Salman shared a moment of deep knowledge at the eye-contact between the bull and the matador in the paso doble act. Remo's knowledge of taandav went for toss, assuming it was there in the first place. And Madhuri, isn't she a classical dancer herself?

By making taandav a dance style like a Tango, they committed the first offence. The second offence was making it a duet 😕. If it was a real duet, then they need to read up on Shakti's dance. The third offence was mixing it up with other styles with lifts and what not and making it a freestyle. The fourth offence was the song choice. The fifth was being semiotically challenged - as you said - the red kumkum - they were mixing up signfier and signified. Whatever we know of Shiva, who is an ascetic, he would not in his wildest taandav moment, pick up red kumkum to smear his face. It made more sense in the context of a war dance, that kumkum (which itself signifies various things) was the color they were trying to use to signify blood, fury, aggression etc. 😕.

Nope, you nailed it with these bits of your response. These are exactly my problems with the dance, compounded considerably by the fact that the judges didn't have a clue. I have never given Madhuri much credit for knowing anything about dance (I remember a while back during the first or second season of KBC she was a star contestant and she actually froze on the question who is Nataraja? The options were four variations on "god of ___." She actually used 50/50! 😲 I remember this all too clearly). She just dances, and in her case that is more than enough because she is so gosh darn good at it naturally, but not when she is a judge and the supposed classically trained on at that. And I certainly expected more knowledge from Remo!

And you were spot on about this being some sort of warrior dance, which is simply mistaking the meaning of the word tandav. Tandav, if it is angry, is not a dance that is fighting for something. It is a dance of fury that there is nothing to fight for.

I loved your idea of making it a duet by including Shakti more clearly. But that would have implied having a concept, god forbid.

Mostly, I am mad at the makers of the show ideologically because they are disrespecting the culture and definitions of certain art forms, trying to generalise and seem diverse in the process. I am so disappointed by that attitude!

im totally lost with dance forms especially the indian ones but i learned something new thanks to you guys. i've heard and know salsa, tango, foxtrot, rumba etc but had no clue what tandav was

What you said is an eye-opener for me...not being a dancer...not even in front of the mirror!...I never gave this a thought...but I did feel a little odd watching a woman to the tandav...of course,, Jayanti was supposed to adhi shakti but I don't think even Adhi shakti ever did the tandev...am I right?

It's the domain of Shiva entirely, I would think.

Back to the point you are making...it's truly sad to see a dance show that isn't paying too much attention to dance and its forms...philistines like me would swallow it hook line and sinker but then, non dancers like me aren't the only ones following this show...don't the channel and PH care about what they are showing in the name of dance? Surely the discerning public will be turned off ...I can understand how insulting it is for a trained dancer like you to see what passes for a dance form...
But, since this is a popularity based show...in my opinion...the best dance or dancer never won anything here...anything goes so long as the channel and PH make money...and, of course, the lucky ones get noticed and probably get a chance at Bollywood.

As for the dance forms actually shown in the past two episodes..again viewers like me wouldn't know a samba from a tango (all I know is the woman usually has a rose between her lips courtesy the movie Scent of a Woman...I was pretty disappointed not to see one in the show!😆) or a Rumba from a 'salasa'...I didn't know that GC's rumba wasn't really one or Shibani's salsa (was that what she did?) didn't comply with all the rules of the dance.

I enjoyed both in my blissful ignorance.

However, it's up to the people responsible behind the scene to do an honest job and not take all their viewers for granted.

What's more rather surprising is the fact that the judges didn't say anything? Remo is a professional - he should've pointed it out.

What we know of taandav is a conception or even misconception; there's no true form as to what is actually needed or done. I've been told Shivji did taandav even in happiness - again that's neither true or false. When Remo said Jayati had the right expressions for it I felt like there's no really right expressions because we don't exactly know what expressions go with it? Her performance was no doubt great but I felt as though they should have researched on it to actually realize that it's not a dance form that's on the level of tango, foxtrot, samba etc..

Maybe such a theme should've been left for something else later..