Published Paper Details:

Abstract Manipuri Dance and its Complexity Dr. Khangembam Khoni Manipuri dance had been appreciated as one of the classical dances of India, still the study of the aesthetics of Manipuri dance is totally new. In fact, as of now, the study of dance aesthetics especially the dances of the Meiteis is quite controversial both in the place of its birth as well as in the rest of India. Part of the confusion lay in analyzing the evolution of the dances from its folk and primeval beginnings to a more sophisticated codified and structured form as a result of cultural assimilation with the world of Hinduism. In Manipur, as well as outside of Manipur not much of the studies had been done on the critical issues of how the culture of the Meiteis evolved from a primal setting to a refined form later in history. This may be due to the lack of study of cultural history in Manipur, though there had been extensive writings on the subject of Manipuri classical dances as being evolved from the Lai-Haraoba dances of old. The problem was the lack of structural study of the ancient dance form of the Meitei and how these structural features of the Manipuri non-Hindu dances were incorporated into the classical dances. On the other hand, dance gurus and traditional indigenous scholars and practitioners of the seventies were not agreeable to the assumption that the Manipuri classical dances evolved from an application of the principles of Sanskrit poetics, notably Natya Shastra. Though many contemporary studies in mainstream India as well as in educated Manipuri elite circles also contribute to this mainstream belief, the old teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy, established in 1954 under the auspices of late Prime Minster of India, still maintain a fond belief that Manipuri classical dances had its own codes, practices, gestural forms and movement behaviour, body postures etc. which was substantially refined by itself before the coming of Hinduism. They therefore firmly held that Manipuri dances itself was substantially of a high standard of sophistication, and that when Rajarshi Bhagyachandra (1763-1798) founded the Raas Leela, he only had to introduce all the existing movement forms within the new genre of performance. The problem therefore is to undertake a serious performative study of the dances of the Meiteis from the earliest times and attempt to discover certain principles of the conceptions of the laws of beauty as understood by the indigenous Manipuri and define those principles as they existed in historical times.