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Acrobatic dancing has been part of Indian performing
arts for as long as can be remembered, with spectacular examples
recorded in almost every region of the subcontinent (for example: dollu kunitha of Karnataka, bandha nrutya and danda nata
of Orissa, some of the Manipuri dances and so on). It represents a more
popular, village based performance strand, often linked with ritual
and/or asceticism, sometimes converging with hatha yoga, sometimes overlapping with circus style practices. The attempt to associate village acrobatics with the karanas of the Natya Sastra
points to a valorization strategy aimed at classicizing these more
popular forms, reabsorbing them into a pan-Indian reinvented tradition,
thus providing them with a higher status. The inclusion of a handful of
yogic movements, such as cakramandala, a (back) bend with both legs brought forward over the shoulders to enable rolling over, among the 108 karanas codified by the Natya Sastra was seized upon to support this validation.
(‘Dancing ancient texts and temple sculptures,’ Alessandra Lopez y Royo)
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