CHARYA NRITYA
"The precise purpose of the Newar Charya Nritya is to allow the observer an effortless experience of meditation by focusing on the dance, becoming one in mind with the dancer, and consequently experiencing the the true nature of a Bodhisattva."
Core Of Culture Director Joseph Houseal
“Charya Nritya is the mother of all dance forms in South Asia... in other dance forms the performers bow to the audience but not so in this case. The applauding is not required as the dancers take higher form transforming themselves into God and making the whole performance a sacred act.”
Charya Nritya is a meditation, a vehicle of bodily and spiritual transformation, and an opportunity for audiences to experience a vision of divine beauty.
A Sanskrit term translatable as “dance as a spiritual discipline,” Charya Nritya is a moving mediation, tailored to specific deities, which enables the dancer to fully become the deity in body, speech, and mind, in order to benefit all beings.
This dance has been performed by the Newar priests of the Katmandu Valley in Nepal for over 1,000 years.
A Sanskrit term translatable as “dance as a spiritual discipline,” Charya Nritya is a moving mediation, tailored to specific deities, which enables the dancer to fully become the deity in body, speech, and mind, in order to benefit all beings.
This dance has been performed by the Newar priests of the Katmandu Valley in Nepal for over 1,000 years.
Nepalese Choreographer Rajendra Shrestha
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The deities are described in esoteric Sanskrit songs known as charya-giti ,which are sung as accompaniment to the dance. Charya-giti are sung in a variety of raga (melodies) and tala (meters) and are accompanied by small cymbals known as ta and sometimes by a two-headed hourglass drum, or damaru. The songs begin with a flowing raga, followed by a more metrical section that includes description and praise of the deity and usually consists of changing verses and a fixed, repeating refrain. Sometimes a dharani praise invocation, or mantra, is inserted near the beginning or end.
Each dance embodies and brings forth a different Buddhist diety. The central purpose of the dance is to support the Vajrayana practice of deity yoga, or visualizing oneself as a deity. This practice involves a mental process of seeing oneself as having the appearance, ornaments, inner qualities, and awareness of the deity one is envisioning. The song and dance praise the transcendental qualities of a particular divinity while affirming the presence of those qualities in the dancer’s body as it becomes an empty vessel for the revelation of the deity within. The dancer becomes the deity through this interplay of giver and receiver. Newar Buddhists believe that humans are divine in our deepest nature, but we have not awakened to this realization. A shift of awareness in relationship to body, speech, and mind is what reveals the deity within.
The universe of a divine being, the surrounding environment, or mandala, is also experienced as divine. As the dancers become the deities, everything and everyone that surrounds them is ultimately experienced as the divine world. The audience becomes an intimate part of their world, sharing the rasa, the “taste,” or essence, of each sacred movement. |
Today, despite a decade of radical social and political instabilty in Nepal, the Charya Nritya tradition is maintained by several hundred high caste Newar Vajracharya priests and their families. However, while there are several serious practitioners of Charya Nritya, its formal and meditational mastery are threatened in two ways.
1. In order to rectify the the prevailing university education in Nepali dance, in which traditional Indian dance literature and habits served as a basis, the Vajracharyas released some of their previously secret history and dances in order that a true Nepali style be taught in the Nepalese university system. While this is good, it has resulted in some not fully-trained university teachers producing students who have learned incorrectly both the dance and its philosophy. These students often go on to become performers, but showing a debased version of Charya Nritya. The number of such misguided performers is on the rise.
2. The enormous success of Bollywood musical films from India, which feature infectious, energetic dancing, is damaging to all Nepali performing arts, as local performers adopt these popular current dance styles, thus diluting the integrity of traditional Nepali performance arts such as Charya Nritya.
1. In order to rectify the the prevailing university education in Nepali dance, in which traditional Indian dance literature and habits served as a basis, the Vajracharyas released some of their previously secret history and dances in order that a true Nepali style be taught in the Nepalese university system. While this is good, it has resulted in some not fully-trained university teachers producing students who have learned incorrectly both the dance and its philosophy. These students often go on to become performers, but showing a debased version of Charya Nritya. The number of such misguided performers is on the rise.
2. The enormous success of Bollywood musical films from India, which feature infectious, energetic dancing, is damaging to all Nepali performing arts, as local performers adopt these popular current dance styles, thus diluting the integrity of traditional Nepali performance arts such as Charya Nritya.
A Day of Rare Buddhist Dances, Victoria & Albert Museum, London ~ photo jonathan greet
