Evaluating Quality of Dance Movements in Bharatanatyam Through Kinematics and Statics

Abstract

Bharatanatyam, an ancient Indian Classical dance form, emphasizes the clean execution of steps with proper posture, usage of space, and energetic movements and thereby judges movements qualitatively. This paper aims to evaluate how kinematics/statics can determine the quality of a dance move in terms of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ movement quantitatively. The base hypothesis is that the dancer’s body can be considered as a rigid body for easy analysis. Two movements- a one-dimensional jump and a two-dimensional jump- are performed, recorded with calibration sticks and analyzed using Tracker and JupyterLab. However, due to inconsistencies within acceleration due to gravity values this hypothesis can be disapproved. The main takeaways from the experiments were as follows. In the one-dimensional jump the ‘Good’ movement had a longer duration of free fall, a higher maximum vertical height (jumping 101% of the dancer’s height), and a smaller horizontal displacement than the ‘Bad’ movement. The force exerted by the floor on the dancer in the ‘Good’ movement was five times the force exerted during the ‘Bad’ movement. In the two-dimensional motion, the ‘Good’ movement had a longer duration of free fall, a higher maximum vertical height (jumping 90% of the dancer’s height), and a larger horizontal displacement than the ‘Bad’ movement. The force exerted by the floor on the dancer in the ‘Good’ movement was two times the force exerted during the ‘Bad’ movement. The value of spring constant in one dimensional motion is four times the value in two-dimensional motion.