What is the right age to start learning BharataNatyam?

paddu · Post by **paddu** » 09 Jan 2008, 10:28

Hi,
My daughter is 5 years old. She loves to dance (Mostly to filmi music). Is this the right time to put her into BharataNatyam?
Please let me know.

Thanks
Paddu

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 09 Jan 2008, 10:45

It depends on her aptitude .. I know one girl who started at 4 and coped well while others struggle to keep up the practice even when 6 or 7. Speak to the dance teacher and ask what age they think your daughter should join.

paddu · Post by **paddu** » 09 Jan 2008, 11:07

Thanks Mohan.
Should the child be well built? because I heard that - not so well built children complain of pain and discomfort in the feet.

Thanks
Paddu

raj-123 · Post by **raj-123** » 09 Jan 2008, 11:18

paddu wrote:Hi,
My daughter is 5 years old. She loves to dance (Mostly to filmi music). Is this the right time to put her into BharataNatyam?
Please let me know.

Thanks
Paddu

Where are you located? What does local teachers say?

We had similar questions, my daughter was also very much interested in Bharatanatyam because we have been going to arangetrams and natyam performances in Bay Area since she was 2 years old. She got lots of interest and we got conflicting answers from different people. Vishal Ramani of Shri Krupa takes kids from age 4 itself. She herself did Arangetram in Bombay long back at age 7. Suganda Sreenath (her sister is Ananda Sankar Jayanth in Hyderabad) takes kids friom age 5. Indumathy Ganesh in Fremont, I guess takes from 6. So it depends on the teacher.

My daughter is learning since 4.5 and she is yet to be 5. They emphasize lot of hand gestures, so you are not even using your feet now. Since Bharatanatyan is 6-10 years learning involved, they will not start dancing right away. Lot of fundamental steps have to repeated maybe 1000 times before they start with full dance numbers. If the kid enjoys and you are not thrusting it, they will be ok. I have seen arangetrams of 10 year old in San Jose which is simply splendid and 16 year olds have struggled in arangetrams too. I guess training, shraddha, focus all help.

paddu · Post by **paddu** » 09 Jan 2008, 11:34

Hi Raj,
I am in Bangalore. I am yet to talk to the teachers.
But before I do that, I am speaking to a few parents to find their view about this.

Thanks
Paddu

krvidhyaa · Post by **krvidhyaa** » 09 Jan 2008, 13:54

yEAH, IT DEPENDS ON THE APTITUDE OF THE CHILD AND THE JUDGEMENT OF THE TEACHER. My daughter joined at the age of 4.5 and now she is going to be 8. She goes with the same sustained interest but the teacher told me that she will teach slowly only in the initial years as she does not want them to strain their growing limbs too much. It's been working fine. I think at the time of joining itself we should not think of salangai poojai and arangetram and then things will be fine.

samskr60 · Post by **samskr60** » 10 Jan 2008, 11:25

See this 7 year old Bharatanatyam dancer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C6BWirS7pk